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Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
My intention is to make links only to publicly accessible, stable URLs. If you find a link to a page that requires subscription, please report that as you would report any other broken link.
There is no such thing as "negotiating in good faith" for the hostage-takers and terrorists of the Republican Party.
*The UN working group on arbitrary detention has condemned the US for imprisonment without trial (not to mention torture) in Guantanamo prison.* It called for release of prisoner Abu Zubaydah.
Republicans are trying to distract attention from their real insurrection on Jan 6, 2021 by pretending that a few peaceful protests were "insurrections" and punishing its supporters as if that were true.
*A decade on from Rana Plaza, fast fashion still reigns — has anything changed…?*
China seems to be serious about trying to bring about a peace between Putin and Ukraine.
If China works on this patiently, it may eventually bring about a deal, provided that the two sides can eventually agree on one. It would require Putin to accept concessions which, at present, he is unwilling to accept. But maybe with time he will change his mind somewhat.
Taking stock of the enormous atrocity that the Putin forces committed in Mariupol.
Naturalists are breeding and releasing 11 species of Polynesian snails that were extinct in the wild, killed by an intrusive predator snail that humans had brought, hoping it would wipe out another invasive snail.
The technique of releasing an intrusive predator to control a pest species has often backfired in this way. Cane toads in Australia are a prominent example.
I wonder if robots could be programmed to efficiently find and kill the two intrusive species of snails. It might be easy to distinguish them from all the other species actually present in a given island, making the robots reliable there even if they might not be reliable elsewhere.
Unlike intrusive life forms, robots are easy to prevent from becoming a pest. They don't reproduce, and they need the help of humans to recharge.
In Australia, the rapid construction of renewable energy generation is substituting for fossil fuels and reducing greenhouse emissions.
*Why We Must Beat Back Private Equity's Deadly Hold on Nursing Homes.*
We need a law to prohibit tying many companies together. Not solely via visible mergers, but also by having common owners.
Perhaps certain companies should be forbidden to have their stock owned by anyone but individuals.
(satire) *Promising Report Finds Great Pacific Garbage Patch Could Support Full-Scale Ground War By 2040.*
Florida Republicans have another idea for attacking voting rights: attacking the organizations that help people in disprivileged groups register to vote.
Congress has proposed a law to prohibit setting up AI systems to decide whether to launch nuclear weapons. This is not an imaginary issue: there have been proposals to do just that.
The legal technique of "no federal funds may be used" has a well-known loophole: just find a private source of funds to do the specific job. Thugs have used "police foundations" to negate laws design with that method.
Disney is suing DeMentis, accusing him of using law for motives of personal retaliation.
The pleas of Oklahoma's attorney general that Richard Glossip is innocent were not enough to convince the state's pardon board not to execute him.
The US Chamber of Commerce pretends to represent small businesses, but half its income comes from donations of over a million dollars.
Jaci Statton had an nonviable fetus which was turning into cancer, but doctors in Oklahoma could not treat her because the treatment is an abortion. They told her to wait in the parking lot until she was on the verge of death, so they would be allowed to perform it.
*[So-called] conservatives love judicial activism — as long as the law is moved in their favor.*
Robert Reich: why Republicans make a big fuss about gender bigotry: it is a well-established path for recruiting for right-wing extremism.
*The Murdochs Want to Erase the Dominion Exposé [of Faux News]. We Won't Let Them.*
(satire) *Sarah Huckabee Sanders Drops Kids Off At Summer Work Camp.*
The "Starship" rocket faces an environmental investigation because of the damage it when lifting off. It not only destroyed the launch pad, it threw parts pieces of it into the air, and they crumbled and rained down on a nearby town.
California has put toxic pollution limits on train engines. Many will have to be replaced with more efficient engines.
The new rule will greatly reduce toxic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
An important new class of antibiotics is derived from "antimicrobial peptides". However, feeding them to farm animals is breeding bacteria to be resistant to them.
Florida's surgeon general, an anti-vaxxer, altered the text of a study the state was publishing, to exaggerate a rare problem with Covid-19 vaccines.
New Zealand thinks it can plant enough trees to outweigh all its greenhouse gas emissions.
That is very risky. What if the trees die? That has happened before in big tree-planting projects. It is also no example for the rest of the world to follow.
This Julian Assange rally will be at the May Day rally, Monday, May 1, at 5 pm at the bandstand on the Boston Common.
US citizens: suggest to Congress to allow the president to raise the debt ceiling, unless 2/3 of Congress says no
US citizens: call on Congress to reject Republican "permitting reform" but do untangle permitting for electric transmission lines.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the EPA to go further to protect us from toxic air pollution.
Right-wingers and thugs in Germany demand to imprison people for a month if they are suspected of planning annoying protests, such as blocking roads.
The protesters demand cutting greenhouse emissions faster, on the grounds that climate collapse is likely to kill them before they get old.
The thugs want to "get the situation under control" to assure an orderly march towards mass death. Orderly, that is, until it is too late to prevent collapse and the early death of most of these potential protesters is assured.
Climate disaster is likely to kill billions of people. It will not be an accident, though; big businesses of various kinds are lobbying to keep it going while they extract all possible money. (Those who profit suppose that they will be somehow safe from the disaster, though I don't see how that could be true.)
As a consequence, we can describe future climate disaster as the biggest act of mass murder of all human history, past and future. It is unlikely that there will ever again be billions of people to kill.
Australia plans to block the use of credit cards to pay for online gambling. This is a wise plan since it can prevent some gambling addicts from betting money they do not have.
I conjecture that any system that requires gamblers to declare their intention to gamble and then wait a while will help people avoid compulsive gambling. Perhaps other ideas can be found from that.
More reason to suspect that Tories have introduced voter IDs as a means to prevent legitimate voters from voting is that they plan not to report how many people show up to vote and are turned away.
That number would be an underestimate of the number actually blocked from voting. Some of them, knowing they didn't get the required ID card, will not come to the polls at all.
The people most likely to fail to get the ID card are those who can barely keep up with their work and family duties, and have little time to spare to get the ID card.
Life in the ocean depths feeds on organic detritus that falls from nearer the surface. With global heating, more of the detritus gets eaten by microbes and never reaches the depths. Almost half of the deep ocean life could disappear in this century.
(satire) *Man Buys Wife Gun In Case She Ever Needs To Protect Herself From Him.*
(satire) *Survey Finds Nearly 6 In 10 Wealthy Americans Living Fraud To Fraud.*
A sheriff in Oklahoma (and other officials) were secretly recorded talking about their wish to murder various inconvenient people. They are trying to distract attention from this by claiming that making the recording was a crime.
Arguably it was lawful to make the recording, but even if it wasn't, that is no reason to tolerate officials whose idea of upholding laws is to discuss ideas for murder.
Clarence Thomas's corruption: his rich benefactor Crow repeatedly was involved with questions that the Supreme Court would decide.
*Ocean Warming Study So Distressing, Some Scientists Didn't Even Want to Talk About It.*
*Gorsuch Failed to Disclose He Sold Home to CEO of Major Law Firm.* That was just before Gorsuch got onto the Supreme Court. That law firm has had 22 cases before the Supreme Court since then.
I don't know whether Gorsuch made any decisions specifically in return for (or gratitude for) that sale of property. It could be that Gorsuch's plutocratist ideology is firm and he would usually have decided for the benefit of the wealthy. Perhaps that law firm generally represents the wealthy. If so, that law firm perhaps had no need to pay to assure his support most of the time. Maybe he was glad to get paid off for harm he would have done anyway.
*Clarence Thomas and Democratic Fecklessness.*
Just as Republicans (in Congress and on the Supreme Court) have a tradition of disrespect for democracy and the rights and interests of the non-rich, Democrats have a habit of timidity and weakness in defending them.
I have a suspicion that a lot of this timidity and weakness has been purchased by rich donors that will only support "centrists".
Progressive young voters tell Biden that the way to win their votes is to energize them with progressive policies.
I mostly agree with them, but not on all issues. I give very high priority to defeating plutocracy, and taxing the wealthy to help the rest of us. Those issues are up at the top along with climate defense. Immigration is secondary by comparison.
The antiabortion federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, who ordered a ban on mifepristone, did make supreme court’s conservative majority look reasonable by comparison. Don't be fooled.
US citizens: call on Congress to defeat Boebert's bill to eliminate endangered species protection for wolves.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
To see the confirmation statement in your browser, erase the CSS from it. IceCat has a command to do that in the right-click menu.
*A team of United Nations experts has arrived in the US on a tour that will focus on racial justice, law enforcement and policing.*
Russian-speaking Ukrainians are switching in large numbers to speaking mainly Ukrainian, as a gesture of resistance.
*Abuses "still rife": 10 years on from the Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza disaster.*
Robert Reich: the corrupter should be barred from running for office because of his involvement in attempted insurrection.
The article uses the word "treason" to describe this. In everyday informal terms, that word fits; but it is better to be precise in this context, because the Constitution gives a definition of "treason" which is much narrower: fighting against the US on behalf of an enemy country. For clarity, we should say "insurrection".
A protist species known as "philaster" was responsible for nearly eliminating a species of sea urchins on the US east coast and in the Caribbean.
Is there any chance this organism could be used safely to save California's kelp forests from the sea urchins that are wiping it out? That does not automatically follow — the sea urchins there might be immune to them, or they might destroy other species too. Research would be needed.
We shouldn't assume different kinds of prejudice are equivalent, or to try to set up a fixed order of how bad they are.
How harmful any given kind of prejudice is can vary from place to place, and over time.
For example, antisemitism in the US was much worse before World War II than it has been since the 1950s. My mother told me a story about her childhood in Brooklyn, about children from Catholic schools screaming "Christ killer" while running after Jewish children — every year after Easter. The rest of the year they might be friendly.
Canadian thugs used to grab indigenous men in the city at random, take them by car to the woods, then leave them to freeze to death. One victim, Darrell Night, was able to survive and blew the whistle on this practice of murder for fun.
It's not too late to prosecute some of the murderers, if the government has the spine for it.
Manchin is responsible for increasing the income taxes on poor Americans with children by around 10%.
The reason Social Security won't have enough income after 2034 is that rich people have taken a much bigger fraction of all the income in the US. And rich people pay the social security tax on only a limited amount of their income.
The first step in fighting the billionaires who have seized power over our democracy is to use deprecatory terms to refer to them. For instance, "billionaire".
A billionaire may have acquired a substantial part of per billions, but billionaires don't usually "earn" the wealth they acquire. The reason they acquire so much of it is that they collectively rig the rules so that they acquire, then keep, a much bigger share.
US citizens: call on the Senate to investigate Sinema's apparent corruption; billionaires should not be able to buy senators or the Supreme Court.
I am unhappy that the petition uses an …OTUS abbreviation, but it's not a moral issue so I signed anyway.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
*More than 100 Israeli and international civil society groups warn [that adopting] IHRA definition [of "antisemitism"] could curb work of UN bodies.*
Overextension of the crime of "terrorism" in Georgia has been used to terrorize environmentalist protesters. A similar law in Oregon may be used to do likewise.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I denounce bigotry, and normally I will not link to articles that promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles that I consider particularly important. That article is one of the exceptions.
After the Big Spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Billionaire Polluters hired thousands of workers to clean away the oil. Now they are suing because they have a tendency toward a specific pattern of illnesses, which is likely to have been caused by contact with the oil.
BP cut corners on safety to save money at its workers' expense. Some of the workers on the drilling platform were killed in the explosion that BP didn't prevent. The cleanup workers' illnesses are an extension of that same practice.
The alcohol industry used its donations to medical research to help engineer a conclusion that a low level of drinking alcohol was a little more healthful than abstaining.
This conclusion was subtly mistaken: in fact, a certain fraction of the abstainers had decided to abstain because of some illness, and those illnesses were what made them less well than the typical light drinker.
The controversy over possible future technologies for removing CO2 from the air.
I think that we should try to develop CO2 removal technology, because it will be very helpful if it does work efficiently; but it would be a terrible mistake to bet on that. Our investment now should go mainly into replacing fossil fuels.
Mississippi Republicans deny the city of Jackson the right to elect and control its own thug department and prosecutors.
This is an attempt to thwart criminal justice reform, which would reduce the racism that "justice" systems have meted out in the past.
It is helpful for adolescents to see a wide range of humans nude, so that they don't think everyone is supposed to look like a porn star.
*The government rescued Silicon Valley Bank's wealthy depositors, but neighborhoods counting on the collapsed bank are out of luck.*
The Condamine river in Australia seems to be condaminated naturally with methane that steadily leaks out of the ground and contributes to global heating.
Is it possible to capture the leaking methane, and replace some of the artificially fracked methane that Australia now produces?
*Rightwing extremists defeated by Democrats in US school board elections.*
*China ramps up coal power despite carbon neutral pledges.*
Xi, visit Shanghai now, because in a few decades it will be under water.
India too is building more coal-burning electric generation. Bye-bye, Mumbai. By the time those fools see the danger manifest itself, it will be too late to save that city. or Chennai, Kolkata, Goa, Kozhikode, and many more.
The Recovering America's Wildlife Act would invest in conserving America's wild species and ecosystems, without which our civilization could hardly survive.
Some 20 million Americans would be at risk of losing Medicaid funding for their medical care, if House Speaker McCarthy gets his way.
Precisely how many millions would actually lose coverage we cannot tell, since it would depend on many decisions yet to be made.
If it comes out to around 10 million, my rough guess is that a few percent of them would die as a result within a few years. That will be hundreds of thousands killed.
Shall we call him Massacre McCarthy?
Thousands of people protest in France to block the construction of a new main road between two cities, saying that building more roads for cars is a bad investment for society.
US citizens: call on the Senate to investigate Clarence Thomas.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to raise taxes on the rich & corporations; and not cut benefits for working families (and non-rich Americans in general).
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Biden to close the Guantanamo prison.
My recommendation for how to get around the US laws that make it hard to find a way to move the current prisoners out of that prison is to convert it into a town.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Arguing that only sabotage and direct resistance are strong enough to prevent the mass murder that greenhouse emissions drive us into.
The idea is to stop deadly projects, not merely symbolically denounce them and hope that governments will stop them.
A Republican who pushed to override the 2020 election results now proposes a strategy to rig the 2024 election: make it harder for college students to vote.
Republicans are already trying hard to do this, and facing a lot of resistance. What the presentation shows is that Republican activists feel no shame whatsoever about systematic cheating.
To be a good parent requires fighting now to prevent climate disaster from destroying them later in their lives.
The article reiterates a basic assumption — that you should love, care about, your own children more than anyone else. Carried too far, that narrow focus is a mistake. A saying that struck me as very wise is, "Helping only your own family is a just a form of selfishness." This can be see in the way billionaires are practicing precisely that form of selfishness when they try to take all the world's wealth for their own heirs.
Notwithstanding that, the article's overall point is valid. But I would take it one step further. Nowadays the best thing you can do for your potential children is not to have them.
On the struggle to convert gold mining in Peru — mostly illegal and controlled by gangs — to a method that avoids spreading mercury.
Costa Rica sets an example of successfully reversing deforestation. Since around 1990, most of the lost forests have grown back.
The basic idea was to pay the owner of a formerly forested area just a little more than the pittance that could be made from inefficient raising of cattle, for letting forest grow there. I wonder if this method can be adapted to the Brazilian Amazon. The situation is not the same.
When UK "anti-terrorist" thugs questioned French publisher Ernest Moret, supposedly about "terrorism", they asked him questions about his positions in French politics, such as whether he supported President Macron and whether he had protested against Macron's pension delay law.
This catches them red-handed in dishonest use of these special powers, which violate human rights.
It is not enough to drop charges against Moret. The UK must restore its respect for human rights.
"Americans, unite to support the anonymous billionaires!"
In the US, the "Centrists" are the plutocratists — the ones who avoid most political issues and mainly insist on keeping life profitable for the rich. What's new is that billionaires plan to pool their money secretly to get their politicians elected without bothering with supporting either major political party.
The numbers of tourists now going to the main destinations are not only making them unpleasant places to be, but also converting them into theme parks.
The Supreme Court decision to tentatively allow sales of mifepristone to continue seems to have split the most extreme right wing from the rest.
It is a very sad thing for the US that the Supreme Court has been politicized so far, but there is no use denying it.
The fanatical Christians that is the Texas Republican Party plan to require display of a religious statement in every classroom.
This would directly defy the First Amendment, which bans establishment of religion.
In normal times, we would confidently expect federal courts to quash this — but no one can be sure nowadays.
Global climate negotiations systematically refuse to consider dangers that are plausible but not yet certain. This leads to underestimating what we should rationally do. They also overestimate the effectiveness of economic systems in acting to reduce danger. That gives plutocrats an excuse to argue against taking firm measures to ensure survival.
The author suggests government launch a lot more studies about "What is the worst that can happen?"
The overall point of the report covered in this article is a proposal for a way to reduce emissions quickly: by taxing the old technologies that produce lots of emissions enough to ensure they are replaced in a few years.
*Fox News and its audience became hooked on lies — now they can’t break the habit.*
At least two art-generating online dis-services have banned the word "abortion". One of them directly threatens users who try to generate drawings on that topic. This form of censorship seems to reject many other words, including words for reproductive anatomy and for birth control products.
This form of censorship demonstrates the injustice of SaaSS (Service as a Software Substitute). The user simply wants to run a particular program, but that program has never been released, so the only way to run it is to connect to someone else's server which will run it for the user. This is basically similar in injustice to a nonfree program, but worse: the server operator can control who is allowed to use the program (by requiring each user to make an account), snoop on all the data the user provides to the server, and can even demand data from the user for purposes of profiling or subsequent manipulation.
If the same program were released as nonfree software, that would not respect the user's freedom either. For instance, it could contain arbitrary censorship rules. However, unless it has a back door (which is not unheard of), the developer could not remotely add more censorship to a copy that a user has already installed.
Nonfree software and SaaSS are two unjust ways of making a program available for use. The only just way is to release it as free software.
As for the other characteristics of some drawings that disappointed some users for representing stereotypes, or the male gaze, different users might have different preferences about those things. One user might have different preferences on different occasions.
These programs can't think about those preferences, because they are not a form of intelligence and have no understanding of anything, last of all what an image might mean to a human looking at it.
To make such distinctions requires a human artist.
One of the founders of Earth Day warns that it has become an occasion for massive greenwashing by heavily polluting businesses.
Journalist Doni Chamberlain covers the fascists of Shasta County, defying their threats and their intimidation, but keeping an eye open for the possibility of violence.
Allowing business to optimize everything with profit as its only goal has produced disaster over and over.
Railroads, masks, medicine, arms — every area of work that has been put under the dominion of the profit-maximizer works badly for everyone except the owners. A profit-maximizing AI will be little different from a paperclip-maximizing AI.
Iran is using facial recognition in public places to identify the dangerous criminals that don't wear required Islamic clothing.
They have been specifically banned from the Tehram Metro.
Proposing April 9 as a national holiday for the military defeat of the forces of slavery.
I am in favor of having such a holiday, but April 9 is not the only candidate. Juneteenth, June 19, is already a federal holiday — let's stick with that.
On the Zapotec form of transgenderism, called "muxe".
Texas is planning to pass a bill to invalidate local regulations in a sweeping way. This would include regulations to *protect workers, consumers, and the environment.*
Naturally, ALEC is involved, showing that the main benefit will be for the rich.
I expect that fascists will use this to prevent cities and counties from resisting voter-suppression.
Verisign has asked ICANN to give every government total power to seize or shut .net domains. If some government, such as Tuvalu or China or Beijing, seized your domain, you'd have to sue in the courts of Tuvalu or China, not your own country.
This is a very dangerous concentration of power. The fact that Verisign arranged for this shows it is far too powerful. The network's arrangements with it should be canceled and replaced with something quite different.
The fact that ICANN agreed to this suggests that there is corruption in ICANN that needs to be rooted out.
The American Clean Power Association, which officially represents various renewable energy companies, seems to have been corrupted by fossil fuel influence.
An autopsy found that Manuel Paez Terán did not fire a gun in the confrontation in which thugs killed him.
The thugs claimed that he had, but it was evidently bullshit.
An IPCC publication comparing the effectiveness of various ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions finds that the five most effective methods are:
*By reviving scrounger myths and rubbishing free social care, Starmer’s begun a race to the bottom — one the Tories will win.*
Prime Minister Wilson said, "Labour is a moral crusade or it is nothing." What does that say about Starmer?
Frequent killings of people for going to the wrong door are *the effects of a "national experiment in freely giving deadly weapons to anyone who wants one."*
Chile's president Boric plans to gradually nationalize the lithium mining industry.
Some countries are permitting export of lithium only if the refining is done there before export.
(satire) *Police Read Wealthy Suspect Special Miranda Warning Outlining Right To Impunity.*
Australia has decided to give full employment equal weight with reducing inflation, in decisions about monetary policy.
Republicans have described a specific plan to impose disaster specifically on non-rich Americans.
If I were the Democrats, I would tell the Republicans, "If you are determined to cause a disaster for Americans, you'll have to do it by yourselves. We will not participate. Especially, don't expect we will help you save the rich while abandoning the poor."
If the UK transitions to renewable energy by 2050, it could save money and achieve lower total greenhouse emissions if it avoids building any nuclear energy.
A concert to benefit poor musicians in the UK accidentally used a copyrighted work. The collecting society PRS charged it a fee that amounts to half the money it had raised, and thus revealed it has the attitude of a parasite.
Copyright is an extremely bad way of supporting musicians and composers. We should allow noncommercial use of music with no fee, and for supporting musicians and composers, we should set up other systems for that.
The Australian Capitol Territory will offer abortion gratis to anyone.
This is what every country should do. No one should be compelled to have and raise a baby.
*They cleaned up BP’s massive oil spill. Now they’re sick — and want justice.*
Justice Thomas's rich patron funded a right-wing group that had a case before the Supreme Court, during the time he knew and gave gifts to Thomas.
Survivors describe the massacres committed by Eritrean soldiers in Tigray.
*Shocking messages about beating suspects and making up evidence were found when Antioch, [California], [thugs] were investigated.* Nearly half the thugs in the department either sent them or read them without objecting.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I denounce bigotry, and normally I will not link to articles that promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles that I consider particularly important. That article is one of the exceptions.
The point of the article is that we have a responsibility to object to bigotry when we see it. Symbolic bigotry is nowhere near as bad as beating people up, but we should still call it out, as I am doing here.
US citizens: call on the Senate to confirm Julie Su as Secretary of Labor. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
India's population is increasing substantially — and so is its rate of coal, and its rate of deforestation.
Poverty is a major cause of death in the US.
*Why are Americans being shot for knocking on the wrong door?*
Senator Feinstein is ill and unable to go to the Senate to vote. This is blocking many judicial appointments. She agreed to let another Democrat replace her on the judiciary committee, so as to unblock these votes, but Republicans' assent was required and some refused.
It is absurd for Senator Durbin to defend a questionable bipartisan tradition of the past that the Republicans refused to observe when the saboteur in chief was president. To defend it unilaterally is being a sucker.
Making plastic often spreads toxins, and disposing of it likewise. We need to reduce total production.
Texas is considering many new laws to punish fraud in voting, which almost never happens in the US.
I am sure this is blowing smoke so they can claim a fire exists, but I suspect it is worse than that.
I think these bills are in fact intended to create opportunities to intimidate voters — voters who belong to disprivileged groups and probably vote Democratic — by making false accusations and threats. For instance, the "marshals" could make false accusations on election day to drive voters away.
A guide to the typical terms used for greenwashing in the clothing industry.
The best way to reduce the waste made from making your clothing is to stop the frequent purchase of clothing. If you wear each thing you buy on at least 50 days, you will buy far less than most people do in the wealthier countries. You'll also save a lot of money.
Almost 500 species of animals, mostly coastal species, have colonized the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
US citizens: phone your senators to oppose the "EARN-IT" bill that would prohibit end-to-end encryption and require most online services to scan, for the government, all material they get from users.
That's what Congress is considering once again, after it was shelved for public opposition in 2020. Now they are trying to rush it.
I think this would require services to require users to run nonfree software in order to use them.
The bill is so extreme that if people communicate through an encrypted service, and then commit a crime, that would be grounds to prosecute the service. Why go off the deep end? I speculate that they figure to drop them (as a "compromise") while keeping the basic outrages.
I found a campaign to contact senators to oppose this bill, but I can't use it or recommend it, because it requires running nonfree Javascript code. Web sites and services should be usable with Javascript disabled.
Why not make an exception and run the nonfree software "for a good cause"? Because once you make that kind of exception, once you allow a pervasive injustice to become part of how you fight other injustices, you've effectively legitimized that one.
Those web sites could have been designed to function even with Javascript disabled, and they should be.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Children in Britain are becoming obese because many parents can't afford vegetables.
Some of the leaked Pentagon files seem to show the US was listening to UN secretary general Guterres's conversations.
*Dominion Was Never Going to Save Our Democracy From [Faux] News.* Squeezing money out of it was all it wanted.
*"Don’t fool yourself": Billions more needed to protect tropical forests.*
"Stand your ground" laws bring with them a roughly 10% increase in homicides.
They also enable racism. Any shooter can cite this law, but courts are more likely to approve it for white shooters, especially when they shoot blacks.
Big Tech asks Australia to change copyright law to permit machine learning systems to scan copyrighted web sites to construct language models.
Copyright should allow people to study copyrighted works to learn from them, as a matter of basic principle. That includes adducing patterns in how language is used.
If people want a law to prohibit studying works of text or art to make programs that generate text or art, this should be a separate law so that it doesn't mess up other uses of studying works, or other ways of reusing aspects of works. We must not let Big Tech add copyright restrictions, since they will design it to give them more power over us.
(satire) *Missouri Now Requiring All Residents To Have License, Permit To Operate Doorbell.*
UK "anti-terrorist" thugs arrested a French publisher visiting the London Book Fair. They accused him of having some sort of involvement in the mass protests against President Macron.
This inculpates both the UK government and the French government in repression against protesters. In addition, it demonstrates the UK's disrespect for the rights of the accused.
It is not the first time that the UK has used this repressive law against journalism.
In 2014, David Miranda. whose spouse is Glen Greenwald, flew through London with a disk containing copy of Greenwald's data from reporting, including on Snowden. UK thugs arrested Miranda and threatened to imprison him for years if he did not immediately hand over the keys to that data.
Flying through the UK is comparable to flying over Belarus. The UK government should ashamed of itself.
People who want to rent an apartment, in Australia, are almost forced to use invasive data-collection sites. The users of the sites are unhappy with the data they collect, and some of them are manipulative too.
I expect similar abusive practices exist in the US. They may have started in the US. So many other Internet abuses did.
There is a danger concern that the site will implement housing bias. If their developers get the idea to use trained neural nets to evaluate would-be renters, they are likely to learn whatever sorts of biases landlords have.
I confidently predict that the site insists on running nonfree software on the user's site. The users are not complaining about this, but they would if they were wise.
US citizens: call on Biden not to put immigrant families in immigration prison.
US citizens: call on the Senate to abolish "blue slips" for blocking judicial nominations.
This is the system whereby judges from a state can veto appointment of judges in that state. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
A medically-necessary emergency abortion provides an example of the dishonesty and price gouging of the US medical system.
This is why I advocate a national medical system, not merely "Medicare for all." Under Medicare, medical treatment can be quite expensive. Even the part the patient has to pay can be quite expensive.
Governor Sanders of Arkansas directs applicants for state offices to demonstrate their lack of probity by praising her in the job applications.
Governor DeMentis is hell-bent on punishing Disney. His latest plan is to build a prison next to Disney World.
I expect it will take years to start construction. By then, DeMentis probably won't be governor any more; his successor will not have the same grudge against Disney, so perse will make a deal with Disney.
DeMentis's mania for punishing anyone that won't bend the knee to him is alarming.
However, Disney's being in a dispute with DeMentis, who is clearly our enemy, does not make Disney deserve our admiration. Disney is not our friend. Disney is one of the companies responsible for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Tunisia's dictator has now jailed 20 opposition leaders.
I too strongly condemn political Islam, but repression is not going to make that go away or result in a free country.
Discovery of a thriving coral reef that is too deep for ordinary diving leads some to hope these species will not be wiped out by heat.
However, heat is not the only threat to marine life. Too much CO2 in the sea will kill all coral, and many other kinds of animals, by making the ocean too acidic for them.
We need to cut the CO2 emissions even if it isn't too hot.
Unofficial reports describe masses killed in China by the sudden anti-Covid quarantines, followed by perhaps millions killed by rampaging Covid with their deaths falsely attributed to other causes.
The Ukraine-Russia border, between Kharkiv and Belgorod, was just an arbitrary line, with similar people speaking the same form of Ukrainian on both sides (often related to each other). The war forced each person to choose a side.
The two states, becoming increasingly different over time, created a superstructure that made the two sides of the line terribly different. Now one side of the line is under a repressive tyranny while the other is under (imperfect) freedom.
The author recognizes implicitly that Stalin's 1930s famine affected a large part of the Soviet Union — it was not specifically aimed at Ukraine.
Idiotic UK bureaucracy incorrectly denied the citizenship of many UK citizens who came there long ago as children from colonies in the Caribbean. The Tory government was pressured to acknowledge these wrongs and set up a scheme to right them. But the Tory inclination never to give a non-rich citizen a break eventually won out over righting wrongs.
As long as the watchword is, "When in doubt, kick them out," it won't do the job.
Global heating is wiping out ancient settlements in the high Andes because there is no more water.
US citizens: call on US courts to protect medicated abortion.
US citizens: call on Congress to tax rich people's income at the same rate regardless of which financial arrangements are used to pay it to them. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Republicans to leave Americans' benefits (already inadequate) alone.
US citizens: call on Congress to fund Public Media.
Corporate "sponsors" have too much influence over US public media. As usual, they use that influence to slant coverage and adjust the Overton window. With more public funds, public media could resist their influence more. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The US may supply Taiwan with a huge stock of weapons for asymmetric warfare against the threatened Chinese conquest.
A teenager in Kansas City was shot while trying to pick up two of his brothers when he was shot. Why was he shot? He had gone to the wrong address, and he was black.
The victim made an innocent mistake, and perhaps so did the shooter. But the victim's mistake was harmless and nonviolent. The shooter's mistake, if it was one, was to jump to a hostile conclusion without checking it.
We must not accept the excuse of "innocent mistake" for violent actions.
Sanders: *We must raise the minimum wage to a living wage.*
The necessities of life should not depend on employment. If society provided those to everyone, the minimum wage would not have to include that.
Some PFAS are used in packaging, and are supposedly safe when used that way, but in fact they can escape from the packaging and get into the food or beverage.
*Assisted-living homes are rejecting Medicaid [as an excuse for] evicting seniors.*
*LNG Is a Bridge Fuel to a Hotter, More Dangerous World.*
*Israeli [thugs] Assault Palestinian Christian Worshipers in Jerusalem.*
US citizens: call on members of Congress to sign the Bowman/Sanders letter for the US to push back on Israel's increasing violence (and repression) in occupied Palestine.
Tracing the suffering caused by deregulating various businesses to Republican politics and Koch money.
A spy company hired by the companies behind the Dakota Access Pipeline used lawful and unlawful methods to snoop on the campaigners opposing to the pipeline.
For me, the most important thing about the pipeline is that it would lead to more fossil fuel use for a long time, and therefore contribute to global disaster. It is interesting that, for the author of the article, the fact that indigenous people lived nearby and played a major role in that campaign is more important than helping to save the world.
Amazon is wearing down its workers' union by continuing noncooperation and harassment.
There are so many reasons to refuse to buy from Amazon.
US citizens: call on Secretary Buttigieg to stop the Uinta Basin railway.
*What is it about many modern day Republican candidates?
If they win an election, everything is on the up and up. If they lose, something was amiss and certainly unfair.*
My explanation is, they accuse Democrats of doing what they would plan to do.
Clarence Thomas sold real estate to Republican funder Harlan Crow and did not report it.
* The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that Mexico violated the rights of two people who were held in pretrial detention for more than 17 years.*
Ralph Nader: what Congress would legislate if it were for democracy instead of plutocracy.
The giant accounting company EY offered to split up into an accounting company and a consulting company. That split would limit opportunities and temptation for corruption. The US objected to a detail of the plan.
I wonder what the objection was. Was the US protecting corruption? Or was EY's plan designed to play a fast one?
The federal appeal court placed onerous restrictions on mifepristone. It will be available in principle, but obstructed by senseless restrictions.
They include a reimposed requirement for an in-person visit to a doctor. In addition, the court arbitrarily cut it its use at 7 weeks of pregnancy. Many women don't learn they are pregnant that early, so this will compel millions to have surgical abortions.
People stocked up on mifepristone in case they will need it later.
It is urgent to ramp up the underground networks that obtain mifepristone and convey it to women who need it.
The Supreme Court surprisingly intervened and blocked the appeals court's temporary ruling that would have greatly limited access to mifepristone.
The result is that sales of the drug, even by remote orders, are still lawful.
This is like a game of reversi.
Thom Hartmann: *The Commodification of the Commons Is Killing Us All*
I use the term "plutocracy" to refer to the political philosophy he rebukes.
*Hungary and Poland provide model for Israel’s assault on judiciary.*
Protesters stopped a coal train in the UK and started shoveling out the coal.
This should be justified by the necessity defense by citing the deaths and diseases that coal will cause.
(satire) *Embattled Dalai Lama Quietly Reincarnated To Remote Tibetan Village.*
Salafi Arabia and the Houthis are negotiating for peace in Yemen.
The difference between Teixeira, who leaked secret military memos this year, and whistleblowers such as Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, is a matter of motive. The whistleblowers wanted to serve the public; Teixeira was motivated by bad wishes.
We must revise the Espionage Act to include a public interest justification. For Manning and Snowden, it would have exonerated them and probably discouraged prosecuting them at all. For Teixeira, it would have changed nothing.
US citizens: say no to anti-voter laws.
DeMentis threatens to imprison anyone in Florida who gives transportation, shelter or work to an unauthorized immigrant.
Punishing people for not participating in some sort of repression is a standard fascist tactic, and you can gauge how fascist a party is by whether it has recourse to that. The Republican Party has turned thoroughly fascist, but Democrats have supported fascist policies in the area of immigration.
There has been a law since the 1990s under which employers could not avoid demanding employees show government ID to prove they are authorized to work in the US. This imposition of government control and surveillance over life makes me boil.
* Because [the UK doesn't] pay doctors enough, there are too few of us. It's all we can do to stop people dying in NHS waiting rooms*
Biden aims to extend Medicaid to cover the DACA people, who were brought to the US as children.
*World's 60 Largest Banks Have Dumped $5.5 Trillion Into Fossil Fuels Since Paris Accord.*
*Sky Not Falling: U.S. Government Again Exaggerates Damage From Leaks.*
US citizens: call on the FDA to use emergency powers to protect access to Mifepristone.
Daniel Ellsberg is dying, but he won't let that hold him back from campaigning for peace and disarmament.
*Manhattan DA who indicted Trump sues Republican Jim Jordan over interference in case.*
The interference consists of demanding to subpoena one of the DA's investigators, trying to find something to accuse him of.
I don't understand the legal issues enough to know whether there was any actual wrongdoing, but in general no one is more likely to lie than a Republican official.
Coffee shops in Ukraine have "security cameras" that should better be called "insecurity cameras", because Russian crackers broke their security in order to snoop on Ukrainian convoys.
Any store that takes pictures of its customers and puts them on a network in real time is making its customers vulnerable.
Rutgers faculty are on strike to call for a raise for all the kinds of teachers at the school.
A billionaire Republican hedge-fund founder tries to buy elections, and perhaps has succeeded. He did succeed in buying the naming rights of Harvard's general graduate school.
I expect the students and faculty will have their say now, and I hope their condemnation of that Republican will live longer than he does.
When the MIT AI Lab moved to the Stata Center, and I discovered that one of the two towers was named Bill Gates, I urged people to refuse to call it by that name. I suggested Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul, but people settled on the innocuous "D Tower" and "G Tower".
I also made a practice of formally saluting the sign that says "Bill Gates", near the outside door of the G tower, with my middle finger.
Methods like this can certainly be used against another billionaire donor who has harmed people's freedom.
*Climate emergency is the biggest health crisis of our time — bigger than Covid.*
Benjamin Ferencz was one of the prosecutors in the Nuremberg war crimes trials, after investigating Nazi concentration camps in the US Army. His obituaries do not mention that he called for prosecution of Dubya and some of his ministers.
Governor DeMentis worked at Guantanamo prison, and was given the task of interviewing prisoners who were going to be force-fed.
DeMentis still claims that the prisoners they tortured were "terrorists", though hardly any of them can be connected to terrorism.
*Report Shows Social Security Expansion is Affordable.*
Some members of the US Congress called on Attorney General Garland to drop charges against Julian Assange.
They were led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
The Group of 7 wealthiest countries are converging on a policy of increasing extraction of methane for fuel. This will speed up climate disaster.
Activists are calling on Biden to stop this. Biden is not the most steadfast and reliable of champions for climate defense. The sad thing is that there is no one else to appeal to.
Biden's new rules for fossil fuel consumption of future cars and trucks are inadequate to prevent them from causing climate disaster.
The Australian government has eliminated use of private debt collectors to prevent repetitious of cruel abuses set up by the previous right-wing government by means of them.
Governor DeMentis went to enormous lengths to eliminate the state's one black congressional representative, by gerrymandering and intimidation of voters at many levels.
Los Angeles released information to journalist Ben Camacho for a public records request. Now the city is suing him for publishing it.
US citizens: call on Biden to respect the legal right to ask for asylum inside the US.
Requiring asylum-seekers to run a nonfree program on top of that not only fails to excuse the policy, it is an additional separate injustice. Governments must never require people to run a nonfree program.
US citizens: call on the World Bank's new president, Ajay Banga, to redirect its investments to promote decarbonization and economic equality.
Sea-level rise in the southern US has accelerated. Since 2010 it is rising more than a centimeter per year.
*A home purchased today in Pensacola will be underwater before the mortgage is paid off. This is so scary.*
This augments the damage done by hurricanes, but I think the sea-level rise itself will do more damage, because it is cumulative. Your locality may go 50 years without a hurricane, but it won't go 50 years magically skipped by sea-level rise.
Imagine how horrible it would be if we treated fire-fighting like ambulances, making people pay for fire-fighting service.
Then turn this around to see the arguments for handling ambulances like firefighting — a public service provided at little or no charge.
In ancient Rome, fire-fighting was a private activity, and this played a role in destroying the Republic. The rich man who ran the fire brigades, Marcus Licinus Crassus, enriched himself so much that there were only three men left who had any political power. When he died, that left only Caesar and Pompey, who then fought a civil war.
If we allow large fortunes to keep growing, we risk arriving at the same end.
Suing the EPA for approving a plastic-recycling plant that would cause a 1-in-4 risk of cancer for people who live nearby.
The risk of cancer will inevitably extend, though with decreasing probability, to people who live somewhat farther away. I wonder at what distance that risk will decrease to an acceptable amount. 100 miles? 1000 miles east?
The report is vague, and represents estimates. I can't be sure from this report how much danger there would really be. Perhaps Chevron can demonstrate that the actual danger is far less. But we should insist that it do so by publishing measurements and analyses.
In an arid land city, a rich person can use almost ten times as much water as a poor person. Cities head towards a water shortage should strictly limit water consumption by the rich years before what they would call a "crisis".
Private wells also deplete the same ground water that makes up the last resort for the region. They should be strictly regulated.
By contrast, building private desalinization plants run by renewable energy should be encouraged, because they increase the total water resources available to the region and don't take it away from anyone else.
The Putin forces are making advances in their capability to jam communication with Ukraine's most common kind of drone. In a few months they may be entirely useless.
What it's like to grow up poor and white in rural America.
I'd be interested in seeing how this compares to growing up poor and black in those places. Racism surely continues its dirty work.
Supermajorities enable parties to crush democracy, as Republican parties are doing now in several states.
But these supermajorities did not happen naturally. They result from Republican measures to rig elections — voter suppression and gerrymandering.
AOC argues that the US government can disregard the court decision that purports to remove the FDA authorization of mifepristone.
Recommending how the FDA should respond to the two conflicting federal court decisions about abortion medicines.
Republicans want to cut SNAP benefits for disabled Americans who can't find jobs. They cite Clinton's 1996 "welfare reform" law as an example to follow, which shows the cruelty of their intentions.
*[Clarence] Thomas Pushed To Kill Disclosure Laws While Getting Secret Billionaire Gifts.*
Why the British government bureaucracy behaves bizarrely and ineffectively: it is in the grip of an ideology that makes mistaken assumptions about how to do any job.
England has an infestation of grey squirrels, and they do lots of damage. It is important to kill them.
(satire) *Couple Struggling To Conceive Considers Trying Sexual Intercourse.*
I appreciate reporting broken links in stallman.org. To make the reports useful, please send each broken link in a separate email. The email should contain
Please don't send more than 4 per day! I can easily get overloaded and have a backlog.
Thanks.
Some of the prison thugs in US federal prisons make a practice of pressuring prisoners for sex, especially prisoners who are not US citizens and might be deported. Those who testify about this are often punished with deportation.
Officials have invented bureaucratic excuses to block the factual investigation of accusations against prison thugs. Anyone who does this should be charged with obstruction of justice.
The practical details of the legal proceedings against the corrupter are unimportant. When journalists dwell on those, they are playing into the hands of his attack on US democracy.
One thing you can help do about this, if you watch TV, is to change the channel (or turn it off) as soon as it focuses on the antics of the bullshitter. The details they focus on are not important. The importance is in the bullshit campaign overall, and you already know the important thing about that.
Biden decided to allow Medicare Advantage insurers to keep overcharging the US government more or less for three more years.
*Markey, Merkley, Jayapal Lead Colleagues on Legislation to Ban Government Use of Facial Recognition and Other Biometric Technology.*
I support passing this law, but it does not go far enough. Nongovernmental operation of systems for facial recognition (and other 1984 surveillance systems) is equally dangerous and we need to put an end to that too.
In 2020, shortly after the election, the CEO of Faux News ordered that fact-checking "has to stop now" because it is "bad for business".
While a right-wing judge in Texas ruled that the FDA's approval of mifepristone must be cancelled, another judge in Washington State ruled that it must continue.
It is possible the drug may be authorized in 18 states and not in the other 32.
Israelis are coming to regard Prime Minister Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition as a security threat.
A white Texan has been convicted of murdering a black protester. Governor Abbott wants to pardon him.
Abbott is, in effect, advocating lynching.
The Taliban told the UN that it would not allow Afghan women to do work for the UN in Afghanistan. The UN told its male Afghan workers to stay home.
The Tories promised to change some of the policies that have forced into penury people who moved from Jamaica to Britain as children with their parents and didn't have the documents to prove they had done so. Now they are planning to take back the promise.
* It doesn’t matter if you think abortion will be legal where you live –- the anti-abortion movement wants a national ban.*
Arguing that the corrupter's arrest hurt his chances of being elected president again.
It depends mainly on how much Republicans get away with cheating.
*Why Republican lawmakers are obsessed about sex [and oppression based on anything about sex]*
*[Progressive] governors stockpile abortion drugs as access is threatened.*
*Outcry over lengthy jail terms handed to China human rights lawyers.*
48 Australian federal elected officials called on the US to drop charges against Julian Assange.
In Australia from 2009 to 2019, the wealthiest 10% received 93% of the economic growth. That's plutocracy for you.
Of the two progressive Tennessee state representatives expelled by Republicans, one has already been reinstated by his district, and the other is on the way to being reinstated.
Israeli attacks on Muslim worshipers in al-Aqsa provoked battle in Gaza.
I'm sure the right-wing government could predict this — such things have happened many times — which implies it sought this. I conjecture that this is a plan to to manipulate Israelis to drop their resistance to what the government really wants: to attack democracy in Israel, permanently.
G20 countries are spending big on constructing more liquefied gas exports. The owners of these facilities will pay politicians to let them continue to profit from them.
Tesla cars record videos of activity inside the car, and company staff can watch those recordings and copy them. Or at least they were able to do so until last year.
They may have changed some security functions so that this is harder to do. But if Tesla can get those recordings, that is because it is planning for some people to use them in some situation, and that is unjust already.
It should be illegal to make a car that takes photos or videos of the people in the car. Or of people outside the car.
Mark Dunlea: *Avoiding climate collapse requires ending capitalism.*
I hope he is mistaken, because ending capitalism entirely would imply communism, which in practice has implied repression and terrible economic problems.
We have good societies with a great deal of socialism, but capitalism persists as well.
Biden has explicitly rejected neoliberalism and the cult of the invisible hand.
This is an important victory, though we need to advance further in order to change all dooH niboR policies that squeeze wealth up to the rich.
Nothing like this has occurred in the UK. *One in three young teachers in England skipping meals to make ends meet.*
The cheater held a campaign rally in Waco, but Waco officials made him sign a contract so strict that he won't be able to avoid paying the costs.
For instance, it required him to pay in advance.
The two Democratic Tennessee legislators that Republicans expelled for joining a protest in the legislature are planning to be appointed as their own "replacements" — and then run to replace themselves permanently.
*Green groups sue to stop Ohio from leasing state parks for oil and gas drilling.*
A new Ohio law defines fossil fuel as "green". We can call it a "liar law", and it shows the dishonesty of Republicans.
The basis for the lawsuit is that the legislators disregarded Ohio's constitutional rules for passing a law.
Biden has taken some steps to reform Medicare Advantage, but didn't have the gumption to do enough to make the insurance companies deal fairly with the public or the government.
There is evidence that some of the plastics used in food containers makes people tend to get fat.
The US Surface Transportation Board approved the merger of two of the very large railroads. This will hurt customers and workers while benefiting (as usual) the owners.
Large companies, or companies that have more then 5% of a market they operate in, should never be allowed to merge.
High-tech "lie detectors" are unreliable for the reason older ones are: because they are based on a simplistic model of how people behave.
Australia's right-wing government is keeping people in prison based on untrustworthy algorithmic predictions.
* "Please": Critics Scoff at Clarence Thomas' Defense of Secret Luxury Trips.*
The White House blames decisions that the corrupter made, that were effectively impossible to reverse, for the chaos of the 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
*World’s ocean surface temperature hits record high.*
The biased Republican judge who was asked to ban Mifepristone went ahead and did it. The appeals court and the Supreme Court, both Republican, are likely try uphold the ban.
*Jayapal Laments Biden's Cave to Insurance Industry on Medicare Advantage.*
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators and call on them to reject the RESTRICT act, which would allow the US government to ban arbitrarily the accessing of non-US web sites.
I see nothing about TikTok that would excuse its existence, but we should ban sites for disrespecting privacy, not for being under the control of China.
Please do not use the EFF's recommendations for how to contact your Congressional officials. That method depends on running nonfree software, The only ways of doing that which don't treat you unjustly are (1) phoning and (2) sending snail mail. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say to increase the estate tax, and stop the use of trusts to bypass that tax. Millionaires' families should not be allowed to accumulate growing fortunes across generations.
Then phone your senators and make the same point. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The series of disasters in Puerto Rico — Hurricanes interspersed with Covid-19 — have ruined education, leaving most students years behind their grade.
These disasters have combined with the crushing debt burden exacerbated by the nondemocratic fiscal controls imposed by Congress which are designed to pay the debts at no matter what cost to Puerto Ricans. This is driving people to migrate to various US states where they have somewhat more rights (whatever Republicans do not take away). Education is another motive to migrate. Even in a state with lousy public schools, they are better than Puerto Rico's schools.
The more people migrate, the greater the debt burden per person remaining. Eventually, I expect, this will force everyone to leave, and the land will be sold to corporations.
Right-wing politics under the auspices of the Catholic Church is driving young Poles away from Catholicism.
*Global banks pledged to cut emissions — but still invest billions on US gas exports.*
Israeli religious fanatics have imposed by law a prohibition on bringing leavened bread into hospitals during Passover.
Religious fanatics seek above all to impose their religion's obsessions on everyone. The amount of trouble those obsessions cause varies greatly. Banning bread for a week is rather mild as these things go. Shutting down public transport on Saturday, which the same group achieved some decades ago, is worse, but still minor compared to the ban on abortion that some Christian and Muslim fanatics impose.
However, giving religious believers the power to impose their obsessions on everyone is harmful in itself, independent of the specific obsessions they choose.
*Politicians are right about the ‘decline of the west’ — but so wrong about the causes. The problem is not moral decay. It’s the withering away of our living standards, security and wellbeing.*
*Democrats bid to use [DeMentis'] censorship law against [him] and ban his book.*
Atlantic mackerel was considered a "sustainable fishery", but it seems that was not actually so — fish stocks are declining, which implies it fishing for them isn't really sustainable.
*New oilfield in the North Sea would blow the UK’s carbon budget.*
Like the "Willow project" in the US, it shows a government that is letting Big Oil pull the world to disaster. But this one shows how the presupposition that "carbon capture and storage" will cancel out the carbon emissions is being used to excuse going further out on the limb.
New York State banned facial recognition in schools, but schools install systems that can do facial recognition and other things, and use that as an excuse to bypass the law.
Republicans have cited "parental rights" since the 1950s to oppose social changes such as racial integration.
*Idaho’s Abortion Travel Ban Shows Dangers of GOP’s “Parental Rights” Agenda.*
Justice Thomas received many expensive gifts from a billionaire over a period of decades, without reporting them.
*Demand Justice renews calls for Senate investigation into Supreme Court justices' ties to far-right donors.*
*AOC Says Clarence Thomas 'Must Be Impeached' Over 'Almost Cartoonish' Corruption.*
I agree he deserves to be removed from office, but it's useless to try to achieve that by impeaching him, because the Supreme Court is now thoroughly politicized — Republican senators won't remove someone who is on their side.
The UK fines poor people who receive welfare benefits if they break rules. The aggregate effect is to make it harder for them to find work and push them into jobs with lower pay.
How could a functioning democracy choose the bullshitter as president? It didn't. Ever since corporations were given the right to spend millions on elections, they became dangerously powerful.
*Women who with higher levels of PFAS in their blood had 40% lower chance of conceiving within a year of trying.*
This Julian Assange rally will be April 17, 11:30-1:00 at the Government Center in front of the JFK Building, where our senators have their offices.
US citizens: call on the DOJ to file federal charges against the corrupter.
The EPA will tighten limits for toxic pollution from power plants.
Similar measures for particulate emissions are needed to avoid provoking dementia.
Pollution activists call on the EPA to enforce air quality standards on factory farms.
*Two Colorado child care workers will go on trial this June for presiding over a day care center where a 5-year-old pulled down a 3-year-old's pants. Twice.*
Israeli thugs attacked Muslims in al-Aqsa mosque again. This time the only violence came from the thugs. They hit dozens with sticks, then arrested hundreds, with no visible excuse.
Humans can develop erroneous memories in a few seconds.
*Ice sheets can collapse at 600 metres a day.* This occurred in Antarctica at the end of the last ice age.
This means that sea level could rise catastrophically in mere decades.
*[Right-wingers] see the law as a weapon, to be held by the in-group, pointed at the out-group, which is to say they are tribalists passionately committed to inequality. They find the idea of the out-group pointing the law at the in-group outrageous and upsetting. Thus their meltdown over an alleged criminal being charged with and arrested for his alleged crimes.*
A defector says that Putin meets hardly anyone in person, does not use the internet, and doesn't even have an assistant who uses it, so his information about reality is quite limited and filtered.
US citizens: call on the US Dept of Health to demand additional financial disclosure about nursing homes owned by private equity.
Here is an idea: make all fines for failure to follow standards of care proportional to the total gross sales of the company responsible? These private equity giants would split themselves up on the double to avoid such big fines.
TikTok's algorithm recognizes a user's points of vulnerability as opportunities to get per hooked.
The article focuses on people of age 13, on the border between childhood and adolescence. But I doubt that that algorithm treats older users any better. Why would it?
The OECD, an organization mostly of developed countries which administers economic aid, has agreed on criteria for "climate-friendly" projects which are vulnerable to distortion.
For instance, hydrogen for intermediate storage of energy avoids greenhouse gas emissions if the hydrogen is made by electrolysis of water using 100% renewable electricity. If "clean hydrogen or ammonia" is strictly defined that way, it would be a reasonable policy. But planet roasters' playbook is to try to stretch that policy to include hydrogen made from fossil fuels.
Unless the policy is made firm and robust enough to prevent that, they will twist it so that it speeds destruction.
Public pressure convinced Governor Hochul to drop her plan to change New York law to permit greater amounts of methane emissions.
*Phaseout of coal power far too slow to avoid "climate chaos", report finds.*
New pun:
Q: Why did the poet start writing elegies?
A: Because he was given advice to die-versify.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and your senators to urge them to sign Rashida Tlaib's letter calling for dropping charges against Julian Assange.
This page includes the text of the letter.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Companies get graded on greenhouse emissions, and deforestation, based on figures that they supply. JBS, the giant meat processing company, amazed environmentalists by getting a grade of A&minus. They say it must be altering the figures.
A court ruling could eliminate preventive medical care for millions of Americans.
The lawsuit was filed by religious fanatics who object to paying for drugs to prevent transmission of HIV. Those drugs, over time, can wipe out HIV, but extremist Christians think that the deity they worship intended HIV to make homosexuals suffer and we humans should not interfere.
The decision was based on the perverse idea that they have a constitutional right not to pay for insurance coverage of treatments that violate their religion.
I don't think that they object to cancer screening as such. I think those are the collateral damage caused by a desire to punish people for having sex.
The leader of a thug union in California has been charged with smuggling fentanyl.
The "war on drugs" promotes corruption of every sort of official who participates in it . That is just one of the many reasons to get the war off drugs.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus recommends a long list of executive actions that Biden could take to help poor and disprivileged Americans, and restrain the powerful rich from doing some kinds of harm.
Australia's government got a secret report explaining how global heating is a bigger threat to Australia's national security than any possible foreign enemy.
It should publish this report.
I've read about two people convicted and sentenced anonymously in Australia for crimes that the government refuses to describe.
It seems almost Stalinist.
Norway is raising the tax rate on salmon farming so that the companies will have to share the profits with people that live in coastal regions.
Those quoted as objecting to the tax increase base their arguments implicitly on the trickle-down theory of economics. The owners would like us to believe that if we let them get richer, they will share it with us. But when the time comes to do that, they always argue for postponing it.
US citizens: call on Biden to protect old-growth and mature trees on federal lands. They absorb more carbon than the smaller young trees.
To see the confirmation of your signature, you need to strip all the CSS from it. Icecat has a command in the right-click menus to do that.
Global heating is expanding the territory where tornadoes usually strike. The expansion is into the US southeast.
"Smart" devices are designed to enable companies to abuse people, but it turns out domestic abusers take advantage of them too.
Even if your present and former lovers don't mistreat you through the Internet of Stings, those companies will eagerly do so.
*New York Governor Hochul (D) is pushing to gut the state's signature climate law after raking in nearly half a million dollars from the corporations and lobbyists pushing the move.*
*UAE plans huge oil and gas expansion as it hosts UN climate summit.*
The stress and danger of being in a demographic that is a target for prejudice tends to make people get old fast.
I presume that those demographics tend to have trouble getting a good night's sleep. It now appears that they predisposes people to asthma.
CEOs of big businesses are tired of pushing for gun control, especially since Republicans don't heed them. Reportedly they don't know what else they can do at the moment.
How about this: stop supporting the campaigns of right-wing candidates? That won't take much time, and it will save them money.
Of course, we know why they don't do this.
US citizens: call on Biden to use executive power to make federal agencies fully account for climate the effects of their decisions.
US citizens: call on Congress to tax billionaires.
US citizens: call on Biden to take climate defense action with dispatch.
US citizens: call on Congress to do everything in its power to protect the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and call on per to sign the discharge petition for the bill to prohibit assault rifles. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: Insist that the corrupter is not above the law.
Netanyahu gained extra protection from his corruption charges with a law making it harder to remove a prime minister from office.
A US court ruled that Texas school censorship is unconstitutional. The books removed from school libraries must be brought back to them.
A few years ago I would have taken this result for granted, and so would the advocates of censorship — they would not have tried it. Now they hope that the right-wing extremists on the court will make up an excuse to permit this — and they may be right.
Right-wing fanatics, supporters of parties in Israel's government, held a rally in Jerusalem and launched mob attacks on a TV journalist, and on a Palestinian taxi driver.
They beat up the journalist, who was hospitalized. The taxi driver was rescued by Israeli cops, who often don't try to protect a Palestinian, but the fanatics destroyed his car.
UK thug departments spruce up their reputations by deleting from their web sites the reports of wrongdoing by thugs. This includes reports of grave crimes such as rape.
*Starbucks fires Buffalo worker who founded union campaign.*
The laws that enforce workers' rights are weak. If the individuals who participate in violating them were sent to prison, corporations would not find to get anyone to do this.
Confirmation that the UK's new voter ID card serves no purpose except making it hard for poor people to vote.
Bernie Sanders calls for breaking up the giant agriculture quasi-monopolies.
I agree, but I think something like my proposed progressive income tax for corporations would be easier and more efficient than suing them one by one.
Joining the TPP would ruin the UK's plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Other business-supremacy treaties are already making it hard to reduce emissions.
For a good time, watch https://invidio.us/watch?v=ues8ycOxXKM
Israeli annexationists have been finding excuses for years to expel Palestinians from old Jerusalem, neighborhood by neighborhood. The next target is the Mount of Olives.
It is foolish and stingy for societies to refuse to spend money to help each child grow up well.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to oppose cutting SNAP, which provides food benefits to poor people. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Everyone: call on Red Lobster to buy only lobsters caught with ropeless methods.
This is to avoid injuring whales.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Pay the Teachers Act, which would increase the salary of public school teachers.
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The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to reject the TAP American Energy Act, which would mandate more drilling in the seas, and more coal mining on land.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to vote against authorizing war with Mexico.
Although the "war on drugs" is only a metaphor, the actual policies it stands for cause many deaths. Extending it into a real war would make it even worse.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to disqualify the wrecker from running for federal office, on the grounds of his call for violence if he is arrested.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to legalize using US foreign aid funds for abortions": pass the Abortion is Healthcare Everywhere Act.
I object to using the marketing term "health care" to refer to medical treatment, but that's a secondary issue, but not important enough to outweigh my support for this.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Formerly interhostile Palestinian factions in the West Bank are joining to fight Israelis; the two sides regularly kill each other.
The article describes repeated Israeli attacks as "in response to" repeated Palestinian attacks. That asymmetry seems arbitrary: this looks like a cycle in which each attack inspires an attack by the other side. Each side is constantly retaliating for what the other side is constantly doing, and vice versa.
If Israel had protected Palestinians who were not violent, and respected their rights at least somewhat, the Palestinian Authority could have validly said it was providing benefits to the Palestinians. But Israel did not do enough to restrain its fanatics, so the Palestinian Authority could not gain anything by recognizing Israel's authority.
I suspect that the fanatical Israeli annexationists aim to whip up all-out war, figuring that they can make that an opportunity for ethnic cleansing, as Uri Avnery said was their goal.
Italy's right-wing government is attacking same-sex couples by persecuting their children — refusing to register them as citizens. That is likely to cause them many problems throughout their lives.
IVF should not be allowed for anyone. There is nothing immoral about it, but we still need to curb the human population. If you want to raise a child but cannot biologically make one, what you should do, to help civilization survive, is to adopt an already-living child — not arrange for an additional child to be born for you.
That may change some day. If we get down to only one billion human beings, and there is no danger of further global heating, perhaps then we should encourage people to have somewhat more children so as to stabilize the population.
Renowned Russian writer Mikhail Shishkin condemns Putin for staining the Russian language with the blood of Ukrainians.
Shishkin talks about the situation of Russia.
The planned Idaho law prohibiting helping a minor travel to get an abortion is designed cunningly to interfere with the activities of people outside Idaho.
In addition, it is designed to harass people even for activities which it says are still lawful.
The Tories are pushing laws to set up an exaggerated version of "broken windows policing." When the US tried that, it did no significant good but lots of harm. Sad to say, the US has not entirely dropped that approach; thugs love it, since it gives them an opportunity to go to town on rather helpless "criminals."
The Tory version will be exaggerated to penalize minor nuisances.
The main crime the bullshitter is now charged with is paying hush money on behalf of a political campaign.
The secondary crime is misrepresenting the purpose of that payment, on a tax return.
Ralph Nader: *One measure of corporate power’s dominance is its 24/7 relentless, profit-driven capacity to strike back and prevail over reforms or other efforts designed to give the people voice and fairness.*
Some of his examples support one simple lesson:
Never try "help" businesses do something we would want them to do
by giving them more money to do it with.
There are more good lessons to be learned.
The Vatican has denounced its "doctrine of discovery" which it used to give a religious justification to colonization.
In the 1400s and 1500s, European monarchs were seriously afraid they would go to Hell if they started unjust wars. For instance, the king of Spain really really wanted to attack England, but waited years for a religiously valid excuse for dispatching the armada.
It is foolish to demand that the Vatican make substantive changes in the situation of indigenous people today, because it doesn't have any power nowadays. All it can do is give advice — which can be good or bad.
It is a good thing that a Vatican decision "doesn't change the law in any country." If the Vatican could do that, the first change it would make is to prohibit abortion.
The Tories are entering Britain in the TPP (Trance Pacific Partnership), under a slightly changed name but with the same subjection to business.
The Tories said they wanted the UK to leave the EU so as to decide its own laws, but what they really wanted was to augment plutocracy — to give international business more power than the EU permits it to have.
*15 Million People [in the US] Could Lose [medical] Coverage as Nightmarish Medicaid 'Purge' Begins.*
It starts with five states suffering under Republican rule.
US citizens: call on Biden to declare a climate emergency now. This would give him powers he could use effectively without Congress.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress not to extend the corrupter's tax cuts for the wealthy. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the EPA to protect the rusty patched bumblebee (and many other species) from the pesticide cyantraniliprole.
*UN nuclear watchdog says fighting near Ukraine power plant is "intensifying."*
Comparing this with Putin's other behavior suggests this is intended to as something fools can cite in arguments calling for giving Putin a successful conquest in the name of peace.
It won't bring peace for long, though.
The fossil gas industry is trying to use Putin's economic warfare to get permission to build lots of extraction facilities, which they will parlay into an excuse to keep running them for decades.
*European Human Rights Court Hears Historic Climate Case Brought by Elderly Swiss Women.*
Such lawsuits are increasing. The global heating that has occurred already is killing people today. But if one of these cases reaches a verdict of "guilty", or if in a civil suit the plaintiffs win, I don't see what adequate punishment or remedy a court would be able to impose. Money damages to be paid by the state would do little to make things right. That would require reducing future emissions, but a court can't decide how to do that.
A US Senate investigation reports that Crédit Suisse has participated in a "massive, ongoing conspiracy" to help wealthy US citizens dodge taxes.
The US citizens in question are quite wealthy; each has deposited more than $20 million each in Crédit Suisse.
*Protect the Israeli Judiciary — but Don’t Let It Launder War Crimes Against Palestinians.*
Idaho Republicans plan to make it a felony to "procure an abortion"for a minor.
This would clearly be wrong and harmful. Just how much harm it will do, I am not sure; it depends on precisely what it means to "procure an abortion", which is not clear here.
*[New] Quality standards [proposed] to hold carbon offsetting industry to account.*
Both the sellers of offsets and the buyers have a monetary interest in undermining the goal, and they have found plenty of ways to do so. This initiative is meant to prevent that, but they will keep trying, and I think they will find new ways to undermine it.
That is why I advocate greenhouse emission taxes rather than a market for trading quotas.
Tories have converted the UK's planned "green day" at last minute into a fossil fuel bonanza. *Dirty money powers the [Tory] government.*
US citizens: call on Biden to appoint Kyrsten Sinema ambassador to Italy.
The proposal is ironic but I think it is seriously proposed.
US citizens: call on Attorney General Garland to automate marijuana pardon applications.
US citizens: call on Congress to reject the Republican plan to replace income tax with a big sales tax.
The result of that change would be to tax wealthy people much less and tax poor people a lot more. This is what sales taxes always do; we should get rid of them. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
*Angry Fox News chief said [in 2020 that] fact-checks of Trump’s election lies "bad for business."*
Rep. Gaetz hired a convicted murderer as an aide. But not just any murder — that one murdered a prisoner of war in Afghanistan.
I expect that this was no coincidence — that Gaetz did this to demonstrate his support for political murder.
The Tories' planned law to punish refugees will especially punish those who have been enslaved and trafficked.
The bullshitter has been indicted for secret payments to Stormy Daniels.
I think that paying her, as such, was not a crime. I think the crime was using campaign funds for this personal purpose, but I wish that were made clear.
Robert Reich rebuts the ways the wrecker will claim that it was unfair to indict him.
Comparing the US and other democracies in regard to how they treat criminal accusations against former presidents.
*Trump appointees interfered to weaken EPA assessment of [a type of PFAS].*
Biden reversed the damage they had done, but they remain in positions of authority in the EPA.
Calling for radical replacement of the London thug department.
US citizens: call on Biden to declare a climate emergency now. This would give him powers he could use effectively without Congress.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Bayer to stop manufacturing neonicotinoids.
US citizens: call on the Biden administration to hold Silicon Valley Bank executives accountable — to claw back some of their profits from its failure.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Finland's schools systematically teach how to identify misinformation and ungrounded accusations of conspiracy.
I think this would be wise to adopt everywhere.
TikTok's intense collection of data about each user is a threat to Americans and to US national security. As EPIC points out, TikTok is far from the only such.
The same is true for many other "social media" platforms, and school education programs, and other proprietary programs. If you can't modify the program to send whatever made-up data you want to send, instead of true facts about you, it is not safe to use.
The ADPPA bill that EPIC recommends would reduce the existing massive internet surveillance, but it starts with the usual mistake: systems can collect data that is "reasonably necessary and proportionate to provide or maintain a product or service". That is too lax and will fail to protect privacy.
My article, linked above, states the basic principle of sufficient protection of privacy: does the rule prohibit systems that identify each person who uses them, when other systems to do basically the same job have existed which served people anonymously? Any law that fails to prohibit that is too weak.
The ADPPA's stricter rule for children and teenagers should apply to everyone, but even that could be interpreted in a way that is too weak. We can be sure companies will press for the weak interpretation. This defense of privacy must be bulletproof.
Will we open our eyes to the past and its implications, or drown them out by shouting?
*The campaign to "protect our [British] history," in other words, is about protecting the past from historians — and protecting the present from dangerous new ideas about how we got here. Because when an organisation like the Guardian researches its own historical links to transatlantic slavery — and then apologises and embarks on a substantial project of restorative justice — the newspaper is not primarily presenting a different past, but its ambition for a different present.*
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I denounce bigotry, and normally I will not link to articles that promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles that I consider particularly important, such as the one linked to above.
Right-wing fanatics in Wisconsin ordered a first-grade class not to sing the song Rainbow land.
The song's words advocate tolerance instead of hate in a very general way, but the word "rainbow" was more than the censors could stand for.
The Pentagon should include, in its planning for where to put military bases, the predictable extra cost of putting the base in a state which prohibits abortion.
I'd go further. I'd suggest a policy of actively re-stationing units and activities from abortion-restricting states to abortion-tolerant states, with a goal of moving moving nearly all to the latter in 10 years.
The CHIPS act is intended to discourage US semiconductor companies from outsourcing of chip manufacturing to hostile countries such as China. A look at the details of how it is supposed to achieve this shows the weakness and timidity of the US government in dealing with any sort of big business.
The US government hasn't got the gumption to prohibit US companies from doing things that put the nation in danger, or even to penalize them to discourage doing so. The best it can manage is to offer subsidies if they avoid those actions.
For this reason and many others, making America great again starts with slapping down the businesses that think they own it.
Here's the White House statement lauding the law.
Exxon scientists in the 1970s and 1980s presented executives with a fairly accurate projection of what global heating caused by fossil fuels might do to the world in a few decades. But they presented it as a possibility;
with all the gaps in the scientific knowledge of that time, they could not determine whether those things would really happen.
By around 2000, the science had resolved the uncertainty and fossil-fuel executives could not honestly deny the damage they were going to cause.
(satire) *Prisoner Given 10 Extra Years For Good Behavior To Serve As Role Model For Fellow Inmates.*
Former Texas governor Connally talked with Middle Eastern leaders in 1980 trying to convince Iran to hold on to the US embassy hostages, so that Reagan would win the 1980 election.
This is according to Ben Barnes, who worked for him and accompanied him on the trip.
Officials of various countries have affirmed, over the years, that Reagan made a deal with Khomeini to refuse to free the US embassy hostages before the 1980 presidential election. Here is Greg Palast's report on Ben Barnes.
It accuses him of a lot of nastiness, but doesn't answer the questions it raises: why did Barnes not say this before, and why does he say it now? But, it doesn't cast much doubt on his recent statement.
As for calling "Dubya" a "draft-dodger". that term should not be used. I rebuke Dubya for many wrongs, including the crime of starting a war of aggression against Iraq. But there is nothing wrong in trying to escape from being conscripted into an unjust war.
That includes the Vietnam War, which the US ramped up based on fabricating the fictitious "incident" in the Gulf of Tonkin.
And it includes Putin's invasion of Ukraine. We should support Russians who are doing whatever it takes to avoid fighting in the Putin forces.
*Business Interests Dominate U.S. Trade Advisory System, Gain Access to Trade-Pact Texts Kept Secret from Public.*
This is perhaps the mechanism that ensures so-called "free trade treaties" are actually business-supremacy treaties.
Fresh water from rapidly melting Antarctic glaciers goes deep into the ocean. There it tends to slow down deep-level currents. This could cause catastrophic sudden changes in climate.
Evgeny Morozov: *The problem with artificial intelligence? It’s not artificial or intelligent.*
That is true, about today's neural-network systems. However, generalizing that into a prediction of impossibility for all kinds of technology is likely to be mistaken. If something isn't impossible for known reasons, the prediction that it can't be done is likely to be falsified some day.
In news coverage of homicides in the Boston Globe, from 1976 to 1984, stories where the victim was black were less likely to use language that would encourage seeing the victim as a human being than stories about white victims.
This must reflect racism in some way or other. I'd be very interested in whether it is the result of racism of the writers, or some sort of systemic racism.
I am puzzled that the article says that this used "artificial intelligence", but it doesn't say what that is meant to refer to. I am dubious that something as complex as reasoning software or machine learning was needed to categorize the stories.
US gun fanatics have won the battle of competing pressures on US business,
They have even passed state laws to boycott banks that reject gun companies as clients.
Australia's new climate defense bill requires Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions to decrease steadily over time. There are provisions too to limit fossil fuel exports.
The Green Party pushed hard and improved the deal, thought it did not get all it pushed for.
Alexei Moskalyov's daughter drew anti-war drawings in school. He was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison for her drawings, but he tried to run away. Alas, he has been caught.
*Israel hasn’t been a democracy for a long time. Now, Israelis need to face this fact.*
Democracy in Israel includes only the Jewish part of the population, and a split in that part, mostly about how to treat the rest, is making this partial democracy unstable.
*Russia arrests Wall Street Journal reporter on espionage charges.*
There is very little the US can do to stop Russia from using those laws to arrest reporters who are not spies, but it can at least drop the charges against Julian Assange to stop setting a bad example for other counties.
Each country should stop prosecuting journalists for doing journalism.
The UK's "net zero" plan looks like it was designed to go in the wrong direction.
Supposedly the US government refused to bail out the investors owner of Silicon Valley Bank — but it seems to have done precisely that. The owner was a holding company that had deposited money in Silicon Valley Bank. By deciding to bail out all depositors, the US decided to bail out the investors.
Tory members of the UK parliament, who were former ministers, agreed to represent a foreign company's interests for large sums of money — as much as 10,000 UKP per day. The company was a hoax and their assent was recorded.
For legislators to take pay to serve private interests is corruption and it ought to be a crime. The most shocking thing to me is that in the UK this is lawful. The UK has rules for it, and those elected representatives followed the rules.
*Biden Chooses Fossil Fuels Over Us.*
The EPA has failed for years to upgrade an old standard for safe concentration of dioxins. Because of this, Norfolk Southern may be allowed to leave dangerous levels of dioxins at the site of the derailment in Ohio.
Lots of web sites snoop on their visitors for TikTok by containing its "tracking pixels", just as sites do for Google or Facebook.
The browser IceCat blocks these tracking pixels, but it ought to be a crime for a web site to try to use them.
(satire) *Investors Worried AI Could Leave Shred Of Humanity Intact.*
What they are talking about is neural network systems, not artificial intelligence properly speaking.
The antibiotic-resistant bacteria bred by feeding antibiotics to farm animals are consumed by humans when meat is not cooked sufficiently. Then they can get into the bladder and cause urinary tract infections.
(satire) *Catholic High School Newsletter Has Updates On Which Alumni Are In Hell Now.*
The urbanized world is facing a gradually developing crisis of shortage of fresh water.
*Urban water demand is expected to increase by 80% by 2050.*
A plutocratist party in the German government demanded a change in the nearly-agreed EU directive to ban sale of new cars made to use fossil fuels after 2035.
Supposedly this is to encourage the future sale of new cars intended to run on hypothetical future "synthetic fuels" made from CO2 extracted from the air. However, the proposed directive was already written to permit that the continued sale of such those cars after 2035, provided they could not run on fossil fuels. It is clear that the plutocratist demand aims to create an excuse in 2035 to continue selling new cars that can run on fossil fuels. The excuse will be to claim that these new cars are intended to run on synthetic fuels.
Why is that important to them? Based on the planet roasters' record of repeated dishonesty, I speculate their plan is to claim that cars are "intended" to run on the synthetic fuels, knowing that owners will actually buy the fossil fuels instead, and that this will create increased demand for fossil fuels, such that it is impossible to discontinue them as planned.
It looks like the planet roasters won: the EU made the demanded seemingly-small change in the directive.
Assorted ideas for redesigning cities to cope with the increasing intensity of rain that global heating is now causing.
The Federal Reserve protects banks from interest rate increases, while workers get crushed.
When minors in the UK are searched by thugs, black minors are far more likely to be strip-searched than white minors.
The thugs violate the official rules meant to protect minor from psychological trauma about half the time.
The article says "children", but I expect that means "minors" and that most of the people searched are teenagers.
A new method of modeling predicts that the world human population will peak at 8.8 billion before 2050, and then decline to 7.8 billion by the end of the century.
This will help avoid disaster, but doesn't assure avoiding it. If more people avoid reproducing in this decade, it will make the next decade easier to get through without disaster and facilitate lower use of fossil fuels.
Some city departments to send unarmed people with intervention training to respond to psychological crises are effective, while others are not.
US citizens: call on the Biden Administration to investigate racial inequity at Maximus, a federal call center contractor.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
*How Big Oil money influences US universities.*
Universities even sometimes let Big Oil employees teach the university's classes.
It is misguided to rush to relabel art from the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union as "Ukrainian".
Given the information in the article, it would be more accurate to describe that Degas painting as showing a dancer in Ukrainian dress; but if Degas gave it a title, or (as it seems) said somewhere what he thought he had depicted, we should respect that. Being French, he may not have been aware of the difference, and it is anachronistic to make it seem that he did.
Medicare Advantage insurance companies are using secret algorithms to choose a time to refuse to keep paying for a treatment. Patients and their lawyers are not given the supposed reasons for the decision so they have no easy way to challenge it.
The article calls these algorithms "AI". What that means is not clear — I expect it is mere machine learning, but it might perhaps be a system that draws confusions for reasons. Either way, the details of how the algorithm operates are not important. The crucial point is that they are secret.
Some countries have considered laws to forbid the use of secret algorithms to make decisions about how a person will be treated — and not only in medicine. I think the US should adopt such a law.
The UK plans to evict tenants who use recreational drugs. Nominally the law will require all rental agreements to permit the landlord to do so — but this would not make sense on its own. I suspect there will be a system to punish landlords who don't evict. This way, the state can punish people and hide behind the landlord.
An Australian who worked for the tax authority informed the public about how that agency was using harsh measures to collect unpaid taxes. Now he faces trial for this, despite Australia's law meant to protect whistleblowers.
The problem is that the existing whistleblower protection law fails to cover the copying and recording necessary to collect the evidence to be released.
Extra aid during the late stages of pregnancy improves the baby's health at birth, and that leads to a better life.
Starmer has finalized the rejection of Corbyn as a Labour candidate for Parliament.
*Greenland Ice Sheet Very Close to Melting Point of No Return, Scientists Say.*
*Twitter Widens Its Censorship of Modi's Critics.*
Netanyahu says he has backed down on ending the independence of the judiciary.
He is slippery, though, so he might bring it back in another form.
This is not the only odious right-wing policy change he has agreed to. Others include big expansions of the colonization of Palestinian territory.
Putin's propaganda, together with cutting off Russians from outside news and thought, is successfully convincing them to identify with the war.
I read elsewhere that the families whose youths were conscripted and then died in the war have mostly convinced themselves that this had to be somehow laudable, because they can't bear to think the thought that it was pointless destruction.
This is good news for fascist rulers around the world, and bad news for human freedom.
The US government sued Starbucks for union busting. Starbucks is using that lawsuit to subpoena communications between employees, so it can find out which ones support the union — and punish them.
French students have joined the protests against Macron's increase in the retirement age, and especially about his bypassing the National Assembly to do it.
The Supreme Court refused to hear Stephen Donziger's appeal of the highly irregular procedure by which Chevron procured his conviction.
Surprisingly, the only two justices who wanted to hear the case were Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. All the others were willing to let Chevron get away with railroading Donziger.
The vagueness of DeMentis's censorship of course discussions of racism is causing disputes about showing students anything about the subject.
Given any presentation about racism, people can contrive a way to conceive of it as teaching something bad. For instance, Ruby Bridges is about a black child who needed guards to protect her from racists in her school, back in the 1960s. That is meant to teach students the same age today what racism was like; but how can you prove it isn't teaching that all whites are evil?
In Connecticut: support the campaign to legalize leaving a child alone even for minutes in public places such as the public library.
Workers at 100 Starbucks stores walked out during the company's annual meeting.
Rep. Tlaib has proposed a law to remove debts incurred for medically necessary treatments from people's credit reports.
It would be a change for the better, but a very small one. What Americans need is a national medical system funded by the government, rather than a little less hassle when they are forced to borrow the money.
Rep. Tlaib supports that too. So why propose this bill? She must be hoping that some Republicans will support it, and allow it to pass. But is there really any chance they will do so?
Bernie Sanders proposes to ban some bank executives from serving on regional federal reserve boards, since those regulate the banks those people are executives of.
I support this.
Starmer's policy of vetoing candidates applies to local councils as well as the UK parliament. This has caused a major rebellion in a city where almost half of the current Labour councilors were vetoed. Several of them are going to run again outside the Labour Party.
I surmise that the vetoed candidates were more leftist.
Which approaches for limiting Covid-19 did work, at the beginning, and which did not?
Toilet paper contains PFAs, and since sewage treatment does not break it down, it gets into waterways and sewage sludge.
*Why We (Still) Need a Federal Reserve for the People — Not [for] Wall Street.*
The Society for Personality and Social Psychology states in its home page that it is an academic scientific society that aims to advance a field of science.
However, that has changed. The organization has taken up anti-racism
so intensely that campaigning against racism is its primary purpose and research is secondary.
It is proper for any organization to try to avoid racism in its activities. It is proper for any organization for research about human beings to try to study a variety of groups of humans, because not all humans are alike. In particular, not all societies are alike, and in any one society people with different roles may be systematically different.
However, the SPSP seems to have decided that every research project is supposed to campaign against racism, and research which doesn't do that is not worth publishing.
That is going too far, because it means that the ostensible purpose of the organization is now of minor importance.
I could support an organization whose sole purpose is to campaign against racism — depending on what methods it uses to do so. But we should not convert a scientific organization into a political campaign.
*I live near the East Palestine chemical spill. Officials who say we’re safe are lying.*
The Australian Labor and Green parties have made a disappointing compromise which will allow some new fossil fuel developments but could cap total fossil fuel extraction and total gross greenhouse emissions.
An elite Putin forces unit, made up of Russian veterans of the 2014 invasion of Ukraine, suffered great losses and tried to retreat. Other units of the Putin forces were ordered to threaten to kill them.
They made a video to denounce this treatment.
Netanyahu is desperate to subject the Israeli judiciary to his power so that it cannot convict him of corruption. The army won't stand for that change, and the defense minister (a former general) called on Netanyahu to compromise. Instead he fired the minister. Meanwhile, 100,000 protesters came out and pole-wielding thugs attacked them on horseback.
A general strike has been announced.
I've predicted this confrontation for many years. Ultra-orthodox Jews have special privileges which they use to increase their numbers, and they have joined with the extreme right-wing. That increase, across the decades, has brought the right-wing to a position where control of the state is in the balance. Even if the supporters of democracy win this time, the demographic trend will sooner or later deliver victory to the right-wing.
The only path I see for its survival is for the democratic Jews and the Palestinians to unite to support liberal democracy. But I don't see how there could be enough trust between them for that to happen. Maybe Uri Avnery could have united them if he lived, but it would have been a tall order even for him.
If Israel's democracy falls, many Israeli Jews will have to search for countries to move to where they can be safe from repression.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and ask per to sign on to Rashida Tlaib's letter to Merrick Garland calling for dropping charges against Julian Assange.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Republicans in Congress passed a bill to help right-wing parents pressure schools to remove books from the library and subjects from the curriculum.
It is designed to attack sex education and education about treatment of minorities.
The wrecker is trying to intimidate US prosecutors out of arresting him by threatening that his followers will start violence in response.
So far, it has worked. But if we allow such a plan to go unpunished, it will keep escalating.
*Drugs and alcohol do not make [people] more creative, research finds. Travel, meditation, training and exposure to culture have a greater effect on artistic output.*
*People who took psilocybin felt they were more creative while on the drug, but were actually underperforming relative to their sober state.*
Those results are statistical. There can be occasional exceptions, such as *if you have a vision on hallucinogenics and paint a beautiful picture inspired by it.*
Inland reaches of Australia's longest river, the Murray, are suffering a continuing ecological crisis.
From what I have read before, it has to do with taking too much water out of the river for irrigation.
A plane which the Argentine military used for throwing protesters into the sea is being returned to Argentina. It will be kept in a museum to help make the dictators' murders real to today's Argentines.
The US Congress supports trying Putin for war crimes. That is what he deserves — but so do some American politicians.
This is an instance of hypocrisy: the US supports doing justice in one case and opposes it in another similar case. In the Putin case, the US stance is correct — in the Dubya case, the US stance is wrong.
There are people who would argue that this hypocrisy is a reason not to punish Putin. That is misguided reasoning. The proper response to hypocrisy is to change the conduct in the case where it is wrong (US war criminals), not to change it in the case where it is right (Putin).
I support trying and punishing Putin, all else being equal. But I think we may end up in a situation where a just peace (Putin relinquishes the territory and Ukrainians that the Putin forces have seized, and ends the fighting) is possible but only in exchange for not trying to capture and try Putin. If this happens, I say we should take that deal.
*Only months before its troubles, First Republic pressured bank overseers to preserve the status quo.*
Over 100 UK lawyers have signed a pledge not to prosecute peaceful climate protesters.
An analysis of the events unleashed by Dubya's conquest of Iraq, which have caused misery and trouble just about everywhere.
Robert Reich connects billionaires including Peter Thiel with the bank bailout and with right-wing extremist politicians.
The car tracking company Flock made a deal with a homeowner's association to install surveillance cameras in Lakeway, Texas, without even consulting or informing the city government. (The city's thug department did participate in the deal.)
The fact that the government was kept out of the matter is a additional secondary outrage, but the system itself would be no less unjust if the city government had approved such tracking.
Tracking people's movements is an injustice, and the foundation of repression. No person or entity, whether governmental or private, should be allowed to track a car except under a warrant ordering tracking in a specific place for a bounded time.
Privatized water companies in the UK put profit over the environment. Somehow I am not surprised. The government agency in charge of them did not insist that they spend enough to maintain the sewers. That does not surprise me either. Between lobbying and the revolving door, it doesn't take much to persuade a plutocratist politician to do what perse is naturally inclined to do: shaft the non-rich.
The corrupter expects to be arrested soon, and seeks to turn the arrest into a campaign appearance.
Commit crimes against those who are weaker, get arrested, and call yourself the victim — typical Republican. Compare with George Santos.
Biden had a chance to make a drug company reduce the price of prostate cancer drug Astellas down to what it costs in other advanced countries. He didn't do it.
The article points out that the US government funded the drug's development. That was what gave Biden a legal opportunity to force the price down, but morally I don't think it makes a crucial difference. We should not allow gouging on saving people's lives.
We should eliminate the patent system, especially in medicine, agriculture and software.
Ralph Nader: Powell should have known in advance the danger of his interest rate increases.
A Florida principal fired was after a Renaissance art class showed students a photo of a famous nude statue.
A school board official said that a complaint from any number of parents — even just one — justifies firing the principal.
French thugs used violence on peaceful protesters.
*When he led the Chicago school system, mayoral candidate Paul Vallas took actions that resulted in more than $1.5 billion being transferred out of the city’s budget-strapped public schools and to some of the wealthiest individuals and banks on the planet, a new report shows.*
Rahul Gandhi, leader of India's principal opposition party, was expelled from Parliament after being convicted of "defamation" for insulting Prime Minister Modi.
It was, indeed, rather insulting to all other Indians named Modi. Gandhi should not have said that. But it is not grounds to put anyone in prison.
In the US, I am pretty sure that saying that "all thieves have Trump as their common surname" would not not be slander against Trump. So I am pretty sure that India's standards for convicting someone of defamation of a politician are too weak.
Armies are developing weapons to attack countries by manipulating how people think. TikTok can be seen as one, and Facebook too.
The author is right to generalize this beyond TikTok, since many other antisocial media platforms can do similar things.
Systems to attack or control the human brain are being worked on. Even if technology never reaches the point of planting specific thoughts in a brain, it could be capable of conditioning people. All that takes is the ability to make someone feel good or bad.
Eventually this will be one of the reasons to reject nonfree software.
*Officers in ‘Cop City’ raid shot pepperball gun into [Manuel Paez Terán]'s tent first.*
This means that the thugs started the shooting. They said he did that.
The article presents reasons to distrust their testimony, in addition to the likelihood that (being thugs) they are probably habituated to perjury.
The Tories propose to pass a law that prohibits many groups of workers from completely striking. Some unions now propose to strike anyway and go to jail.
*Hotel Rwanda's Paul Rusesabagina to be released from prison* in response to US pressure. The US considers his trial for "terrorism" to be unfair.
US citizens: call on the Florida legislature to reject the bill to censor bloggers.
US citizens: call on Biden to ban government contracts for pharmacies that refuse to carry Mifepristone.
US citizens: call on Congress to admit Washington DC as a state. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the House Ethics Committee to investigate Speaker McCarthy for giving Tucker Carlson the complete security video of the Jan 6 attack.
US citizens: call on state legislatures to continue participation in ERIC, an organization of states which help each other reconcile their voter lists.
The Tories say they will end their inhumane policy of having bureaucrats arbitrarily disbelieve doctors' assessments that some specific person is disabled and needs specific kinds of state aid.
Such policy decisions can transform a capable and independent person, perhaps employed despite a disability, into a helpless cripple. That change often entails no alteration in the person in question: a change in how society treats per is enough.
Is this really the cruelest social policy of modern times? I don't know. Australia's off-shore immigration prison, which the UK is planning to imitate, could give it strong competition.
Don't believe this promise until it really happens. Tories often say they will make a change for the less cruel and then don't actually do it.
Analyzing how the US social, economic and legal systems keep poor people poor.
J Street recommends ways for the US to pressure Israel against annexation of Palestine.
Does Australia's proposed indigenous voice to parliament carry "authority"?
This article describes the proposed agency in sufficient detail to show that it would communicate indigenous concerns directly to parliament (that is, give advice) but would not have authority over parliament's decisions. The description seems clear to me. If I were Australian, I would vote yes to that.
However, the article says that changes demanded by right-wingers would have "reduced the authority of the voice’s advice." The use of the word "authority" in regard to it makes me wonder if there is a crucial misunderstanding at work here — if the words "advice to parliament" would be interpreted as implicitly giving the voice some sort of authority over some aspect of parliament's decisions.
That would make non-aboriginals second-class citizens in Australian democracy.
If I were Australian I would want an explanation of what "authority" means in this context. Is it a real issue or just a poor choice of words?
A company that undertook to decommission the Palisades nuclear power plant now seeks large sums of money to restart it instead.
The campaign to oppose this asserts, based on the plant's history of problems, that the plant is decrepit and particularly unsafe.
*Secretary general urges countries to tackle "vampiric overconsumption" [of water], water guzzling industries and climate crisis.*
*British Head of Deep Sea Authority Accused of Pushing for "Reckless" Mining.*
The Tories still want to send all unauthorized immigrants to prison in Rwanda. The US judges Rwanda's prisons as cruel and life-threatening, and the general censorship (including imprisoning journalists) in Rwanda makes it hard for people to push to change those conditions.
Look at how hard it is to change cruel prison conditions in the US, where the press is mostly free; in Rwanda it must be impossible.
China has released additional data collected in the Wuhan live animal market in the investigation of Covid-19 in December 2019.
In 2020 the FBI infiltrated agents into Black Lives Matter protest groups and tried entrapping activists into buying guns illegally.
The Tories are about to hold a vote on giving rich people permission to put any quantity of money into a tax-free retirement and inheritance account. This would be a big tax cut for the rich.
*It Is Time for a National Reckoning About the Iraq War.*
Arguing that Dubya attacked Iraq because it would make a good example of US belligerence.
The US is building many export terminals for natural gas.
The excuse for them is the war in Ukraine and the short-term shortage of available fossil methane, but they won't be finished until 2025. After that, their owners will use them to lobby for permission to extract more gas.
No one is safe from the right-wing "culture war"'s scapegoating and repression.
Alas, something similar is true of the progressive youth's censorship campaign.
US bankers don't want the sort of regulations that would prevent banks from failing.
Calling for criminal prosecution of the big planet-roaster corporations.
*A radical climate strategy emerges: charge big oil firms with homicide.*
Everyone: call on Amazon to start negotiating with the Amazon Labor Union.
US citizens: Support the Insulin for All Act.
The name of that proposed law is badly formulated, since we don't want everyone to take insulin! Most people don't need to.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
*Vast releases of [methane] gas, along with future "methane bombs," represent huge threat — but curbing emissions would rapidly reduce global heating.*
US citizens: call on Congress to repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for the US to send forces to fight in Iraq.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Everyone: call on Big Tech to implement end-to-end encrypted messaging now.
Messaging applications that involve through nonfree client software are unjust, and endanger your privacy, regardless of whether they do end-to-end encryption, because the encryption could be ineffective or snoop on users.
*Jamie Dimon [along with other big stockholders in "too big to fail" banks] Is Poised to Benefit Most From This Banking Crisis.* *Bailing Out the Undeserving Rich — Again.*
That article falls into the confusion spread by the term "intellectual property". It is an incoherent generalization about laws that have very little in common. To group those laws (or even some of those laws) together and talk about them together is a mistake.
*Leader of White supremacist group [in California] arrested for threatening to kill journalist trying to report on [that group].*
US citizens: call on Biden to protect communities from the effects of railroad companies' greed.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
(satire) *Walgreens Clarifies Stores Still Selling Plenty Of Household Products That'll Abort A Fetus.*
(satire) *Neighbors Shocked To Hear Quiet, Unassuming AR-15 Went On Killing Rampage.*
*The Fed Accused of "Playing With Fire" After Latest Rate Hike.*
Progressive Democrats have proposed to define housing as a human right and spend 300 billion dollars to fulfill that right.
I am in favor.
Public Citizen: *Private equity's ownership of U.S. healthcare providers is incompatible with the needs and best interests of patients and should be checked with federal legislation.*
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and your senators reject right-wing budget cuts and pass Biden's budget.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
*Fears of Monarch Butterfly Extinction as Numbers Plummet 22% in Annual Count.*
The Michigan Republican Party published a meme comparing a proposed law to reduce gun violence with the Nazis' collection of murdered Jews' wedding rings.
The Republican Party is now full of Nazis. Won't they take offense at comparing a Nazi activity that they admire with something such as gun control that they despise?
*Water's Moment: Advancing the Human Right to Water in the United States.*
*Why We Can't Just Do It: The Truth About Our Failure to Curb Carbon Emissions.*
I don't know whether the factual claims in the article are true. I am surprised by the claim that building the renewable energy facilities we need would require a significant increase in the amount of industrial activity.
*Low-income Americans face a "hunger cliff" as Snap benefits are cut.*
Before Maus, there was … Bambi.
The UK government has claimed for years that it was totally successful in fighting PISSI in Mosul. Now there is proof that some of its bombing killed civilians. The British government did wrong to deny the civilian casualties. It should have admitted those consequences.
That does not necessarily imply that those attacks were wrong. This was a necessary and justified war; fighting PISSI was necessary and called for. Military action always has a risk of going awry, which could kill bystanders. That doesn't imply that fighting is always wrong.
Whether the UK forces acted with proper care to reduce that risk, I don't know. It may have made mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, and mistakes are very common in the fog of war.
No army is perfect. Knowing that, we should think carefully before fighting a war.
Proposing a specific change in the law to enable the US government to confiscate the money that executives of failed banks (such as Silicon Valley Bank) personally extracted by putting the banks at risk of failure.
*UK fishing industry underreporting whale, dolphin and porpoise bycatch.*
The Federal Reserve plans to keep raising interest rates, though perhaps not as quickly. It may not succeed in curbing inflation,
but even if it doesn't cause more bank failures, it will put millions of Americans out of work.
*Putin says Russia "will respond" if UK supplies depleted uranium shells to Ukraine.*
I can't imagine what sort of "response" Russia could actually make? Try to destroy the tanks that would fire these shells? The Putin forces will try their best to do that anyway.
Ukraine should say "no thanks" to these shells, since using them would pollute Ukrainian territory with Dirty Uranium fallout for a long time.
It causes various sorts of diseases for anyone who breathes it in.
*A Swedish court … ruled that … youth climate activists including Greta Thunberg can collectively sue Sweden for the government's "insufficient climate policy."*
(satire) *Congress Rules Food Stamps Can Only Be Used On Rutabagas.*
(satire) *Politicians Explain Why They Oppose [Gratis] School Lunch Programs.*
A government-commission report found that the "Metropolitan Police", which is the thug department for London and does other things nationally, is pervaded by racism and sexism and other forms of bigotry.
This includes harsh bullying by thugs against thugs, as well as against everyone else. In London, polls find that most people do not trust it.
Here's a description of the bad things it does.
*Economic growth is not a magic wand for ending poverty.
our focus should be on reducing inequality not increasing GDP.*
*US maternal mortality is more than ten times higher than in Australia.*
It is not easy to measure the causes of this, but we know that they include consequences of the pandemic of Covid-19, a general attitude of disregard for women's medical needs and health, and racism (black American mothers are even more likely to die).
Secretary General Guterres has set up a climate summit for September, with a new demand for earnestness: for a country to be invited, it will have to plan to end licensing and funding of new oil and gas reserves and expansion of old ones. Bravo, Guterres! It is heart-warming to see someone in a position of importance who recognizes what priorities are needed for survival.
With his influence, he has a chance of overcoming the power of fossil fools. It won't be easy to beat them, but civilization depends on it, and every young person's life is at risk.
Astronomers call for people to support banning projects that involve putting large number of satellites into low Earth orbit, to preserve the darkness of night.
A hospital in Idaho will no longer deliver babies, as Idaho's repressive laws make it risky for doctors to work there.
It is the only hospital in Sandpoint, which is at the northern tip of Idaho. I wonder what is happening elsewhere in that state.
The EFF has published a complete list of the locations of the highly visible US surveillance towers on the border with Mexico. The US government has a list but has refused to publish it.
These towers surveil everyone in the border region constantly, but they are not the only method. Citizens that live in or visit the border are frequently stopped or harassed while they drive.
Modi regime censors and punishes foreign critics of its violations of human rights.
The US is suing to stop JetBlue and Spirit Airlines from merging.
I'm glad to see the government doing this duty to some extent. However, to do it fully would require strengthening antitrust law. If we put progressives in control of Congress, they will do this.
UN secretary general Guterres has endorsed the IPCC's plan for rapid reduction of fossil fuel use.
The hard part is convincing governments to carry it out, over the opposition of fossil fuel companies that are determined to make us burn every last drop before civilization collapses.
Several important governments that we might expect to resist it have endorsed it already,
including China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and the European Union.
Being hit by ships is a major cause of deaths for endangered whales. The US should adopt measures to protect whales from ships.
*Florida considers ban on discussion of menstruation before sixth grade.*
Some of the students will start menstruation before they reach sixth grade.
Plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must not rely on risky and untested technologies, such as carbon dioxide removal.
Biden vetoed a bill passed by Republican legislators (including a couple of quasi-Democrats) that would have allowed pension funds to invest people's pensions disregarding how the investments are likely to lose value due to global heating effects.
Ralph Nader looks at fallacies right-wingers use to justify impoverishing the non-rich.
*Tens of Thousands of LA Teachers to Strike in Solidarity With Support Workers.*
Contrails contribute to global heating, but airlines lobby against measures to reduce contrails.
*Crowds in Milan protest against curbs on rights of same-sex parents.*
* Leading respiratory doctor fears generation could end up with long-term addictions and lung damage [from vaping].*
*The former saboteur in chief deregulated railways and banks. He blames Biden for the fallout.
In true hypocritical manner, the ex-president has quickly forgotten why the two sectors are in shambles.*
*The [right wing accuses its critics] of the conspiracy they themselves engage in.*
Exxon claimed it would grow algae to make biofuel without generating greenhouse gases. It has now given up on that research.
Wyoming, an extreme right-wing state, has made it a crime to "prescribe, dispense, distribute, sell or use any drug for the purpose of procuring or performing an abortion."
Redistribution of abortion pills will continue, underground, but people must make sure not to have a snoop-phone in room when they talk about plans.
*The [Republican Party] Is a Party of Death, Not Life.* I'd say it more strongly: the Republican Party is the party of excuses to kill people.
The US has recently deported Russians who fled to avoid being drafted into the Putin forces, despite a previous statement suspending deportation to Russia.
This is not only cruel and treacherous, but stupid and self-defeating as well. It harms Ukraine's chances and helps Putin.
The precise rules for asylum are complex, and full of pitfalls that make it easy to fall into a trap where they say "You didn't follow some procedural detail so you're screwed, tough luck."
*Journalists go on trial in Egypt for "offending MPs."*
Prosecuting people for charges like that is by itself proof of tyranny, regardless of whether they are "true."
Frackers in the US stored methane in an old well. The seal broke and a billion cubic feet of powerful greenhouse gas leaked into the air.
Accidents leaks will happen — both enormous incidents like this one, and numerous long-term permanent leaks that add up over time. This makes fracking a much bigger contributor to global heating than the calculations predicted.
We should ban fracking entirely. This could lead the gas market to decrease fossil fuel use, as is needed to push industries to decarbonize.
*Industry Knew — and Hid — Dangers of Gas Stoves Over 50 Years Ago.*
*Elizabeth Warren says Fed chair "failed" and calls for inquiry into bank collapse.*
He failed because he insisted on interest rate increase after interest rate increase, fixating attention on a misguided plan to cut inflation based on misunderstanding its cause, which drove banks into failure.
The Nazi salute is disgusting, cowardly, and bullying, and naturally provokes "sadness, outrage and disbelief" — but its prohibition by the Australian government is a violation of freedom of speech.
Many Americans were angry at the ACLU when it successfully sued to establish that Nazis had the right to organize a public rally in the US. I may have agreed with that anger for a little while, but after more thought I concluded that the ACLU was right. Freedom of speech is not reliable for anyone if it excludes certain views that most people strongly disagree with.
The US is ramping up the war on people in pain.
* US tech innovators have a culture of regarding government as an innovation-blocking nuisance. But when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, investors screamed for state protection.* Socialism for the rich, laissez faire/laissez mourir for the rest.
* The total weight of Earth’s wild land mammals — from elephants to bisons and from deer to tigers — is now less than 10% of the combined tonnage of men, women and children living on the planet.*
*Minnesota Becomes 4th State to Provide [gratis] School Meals to All Kids.*
To reduce the confusion of the two meanings of "free", I carefully avoid using it to mean "gratis".
A Christian university in Florida fired a professor because a student denounced what he taught about racial justice.
The student called it "indoctrination", but other students said it wasn't. For right-wingers, exaggeration even to the point of dishonesty is normal and legitimate.
That article was written before the actual firing. I chose to link to it because it explains more of the situation.
Greg Palast conjectures that Putin grabbed Ukrainian children and gave them to Russians to raise in order to boost the fraction of Russians that will be white orthodox Christians.
Newly studied evidence suggests that raccoon dogs (a species related to foxes) in Wuhan's live animal market were infected by SARS-CoV-2.
The US and Mexico are cooperating to send Mexicans who worked legally in the US the wages that employers stole from them.
(satire) *Locksmith Called After Man Loses Incantation Used To Open Ancient Stone Chamber.*
P&O Ferries aroused condemnation by firing its well-paid workers and hiring low-paid foreigners.
But nothing has been done to reverse that or punish the company or prevent repetition.
This does not surprise me. Tories would consider this desirable as it enriches the wealthy.
US citizens: call on Congress to make Warren Buffett answer for his push to deregulate the railroads. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Biden not to imprison unauthorized immigrant families.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
(satire) *Conservative Historian Claims Diversity Ultimately Doomed Third Reich.*
Virginia thugs have been charged with second-degree murder for smothering a prisoner to death. The prisoner's hands and feet were chained, so he was no threat to them at the time.
A federal appeals court rejected DeMentis's education censorship law.
*Global fresh water demand will outstrip supply by 40% by 2030, say experts.*
The increase will not be due to the need for humans' domestic use.
*Aside From the Military Bloat, Biden Budget Is Worth Celebrating.*
I am less enthusiastic because I am sure FDR would have done a lot more.
*Russian soldier who confessed to killing Ukrainian civilian [has been] jailed [for supposedly posting] "fake news."*
Putin deploys bogus criminal charges to punish any disobedience.
Many city, county and state agencies have refused to give Manuel Paez Terán's family answers or evidence about how thugs killed him.
There is no reason to doubt that this is what it looks like: a murder followed by playing dumb. The thugs' denials count for nothing since they are biased and untrustworthy witnesses.
The campaign of repeated lies by which Dubya won support for attacking Iraq misled Americans about fundamental background facts, such as the fact that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the September 2001 terrorist attacks and treated al Qa'ida as an enemy.
A similar preparatory campaign against Iran seems to have been running for years.
Since young Americans reject the Republican politics, the plutocrats are trying to wipe or distort our public education.
A loophole in log requirements has undermined European fishing quotas. Governments corrupted by fishing interests are now pushing to make the loophole bigger.
Biden is considering nominating for the Federal Reserve Board someone who previously supported the banks against innocent US homeowners while an official in a related agency, the US Treasury.
(satire) *Financial Experts Recommend Investing In Businesses Government Will Bail Out Anytime They Fuck Up.*
*Biden Says Top Executives of Failed Banks Should Face Harsher Penalties.*
*The bullshitter’s own research showed that voter fraud did not cost him election.*
*The lessons of the Iraq invasion [for the UK]? Beware spies and allies who would drag you to war.*
*Silicon Valley Bank said it was too small to need regulation. Now it's "too big to fail."*
Surely every bankster wants per bank to be both at once.
Soil near the Ohio train wreck contains extremely high levels of dioxin.
Yanis Varoufakis: today's banking crisis is the latest repercussion the 2008 financial crisis.
* Global Commission on the Economics of Water released a landmark report Friday to warn the international community that the world is "heading for massive collective failure" in the management of the planet's water supply and demand that governments treat water as a "global common good."*
The International Criminal Court has indicted Putin and some other Russians for forcibly taking hundreds, probably thousands, of Ukrainian children to Russia and concealing who they are from their Ukrainian relatives.
The article describes what he has done.
I have no doubt that Putin merits punishment for this. However, putting him on trial for it risks prolonging the war. If Ukraine is militarily successful, Putin might be willing to retreat from Ukraine in exchange for being allowed to continue in power in Russia. Insisting on trying him might convince him to continue holding parts of Ukraine until the Putin forces are pushed out.
Here's a clear statement, written by prominent educators and champions of the campaign against racism, of how the pressure to censor the Advanced Placement African-American Studies course is an attack on freedom of thought and education, and part of a much broader campaign against education and to cover up important areas of Americans history.
It says nothing to suggest that today's young Americans should feel guilty about crimes that American whites in the past committed against Americans blacks (though some people do that). Rather, it says that we should teach young Americans these aspects of their country's history, so they can carefully draw moral lessons from those past events and apply the conclusions today and in the future.
That goal applies to other issues besides racism. If democracy and schools exist 50 years from now, they will teach what has been learned from investigations based on critical environment theory and critical computation theory, showing how powerful interests distorted laws and institutions to poison the Earth and make computing subjugate its users.
US citizens: call on the USPS Board of Governors to stop DeJoy's USPS privatization plan.
US citizens: call on your senators to defend the Clean Water Act.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Jews in New York City held a protest calling on Senator Schumer to stop cozying up to Israel's fascist-leaning government.
Texas officials are using a pretext to take over control of the Houston Independent School District. The pretext consists of one problem school that the city was improving. State officials have not presented any plan to do better. We can anticipate that they will make some aspects of the schools worse, and I conjecture that that is their real goal. We must expect deceit from Republicans.
The imposed state board will have the power to impose censorship, and I expect it will use that to prompt racism and sexism and interfere with sex education, as DeMentis is doing in Florida.
I expect Republicans will also ramp up the school-to-prison pipeline. With so many black students in that district, this will be a great opportunity to put many of them in state prisons and thus disenfranchise them.
The UK government offered many NHS workers in England a bigger raise, which means more or less victory for their strikes.
The practice of fully protecting all depositors from bank failures while letting the bank speculate with the deposits is an invitation for banks to take foolish risks.
Readopting Glass-Steagal would prevent some of the mismanagement that can make large banks fail. However, the author calls for nationalizing the largest banks.
A Georgia sheriff has been sentenced to prison for torturing prisoners. He put them into bondage chairs and left them there long enough to cause serious bodily harm.
(satire) *Mark Zuckerberg Worried Facebook Listening To Him After Being Pushed Shirt That Says, "I Just Laid Off 10,000 Employees."*
(satire) *Ron DeSantis Bans Births In Florida Due To Exposure Of Impressionable Infants To Vagina.*
A Republican legislator in Iowa claims that the law he helped to pass prohibits teachers from telling students that "slavery is wrong."
The actual text of the law does not go that far. It prohibits saying that the US, or Iowa, is "fundamentally or systemically racist or sexist." There is no serious doubt that systemic racism and sexism exist in Iowa, and in the US generally, so that law tries to censor an important truth. But it does not seem to prohibit saying "slavery is wrong." Nonetheless, officials fear it implies that.
People fear that these laws will be stretched and twisted to attack them because Republicans say they want to try, and Republican judges are are ready to be dishonest in interpreting laws.
*After industry cash flooded their war chests, Florida Republicans stopped requiring utilities from disclosing who they are punishing with power shutoffs.*
*Mexico to investigate alleged human rights abuses by military after spying claims.*
(satire) *Fetus Panics After Ballooning Up To 500 Times Her Original Weight.*
*The [Federal Reserve] needs to stop raising rates now, former FDIC chair says after Silicon Valley Bank failure.*
Americans for Tax Fairness: arguments for raising the tax rate on corporations to 28%.
I think we also need to eliminate the ways that corporations arrange to claim that income was nominally received in some other country with a lower tax rate.
The BBC claims to be politically independent, but in practice its rules for presenters, writers and commentators are applied with enormous right-wing bias. This has been the case for decades at least.
*Republican lawmakers funded by the credit card industry are fighting to protect the excessive fees companies charge consumers.*
The junk fees are not among the biggest ways that businesses exploit bad laws to exploit the non-rich, but they are an example of the electoral corruption that upholds plutocracy in the US.
*The Iraq War started the post-truth era. And America is to blame.*
I don't think that is entirely true, because the right-wingers were using lies before that. The campaign to capture US policy decisions for the rich, and pretend that non-rich receiving government help were the exploiters, started in the 1970s; it was based on lies from top to bottom.
It has been argued that al-Libi was not merely giving his torturers what they demanded, but intentionally encouraging a war between the US and Saddam Hussein, both being enemies of al-Qa'ida.
Feral hippopotamuses in Colombia are reproducing and causing problems for humans and for wildlife.
Since these intrusive animals are damaging native wildlife, the right thing to do is to eliminate them from the wild in Colombia.
Biden has given reasons for approving the Willow oil drilling project, but they are fallacious.
Allegedly the attempt to reject the project entirely is likely to be overturned by courts. What if that is true? What would be the right thing to do?
We are dealing with a threat to kill most human beings and wipe out most living species -- in effect, the biggest war in all history. So let's look at it like a battle against the planet-roasters.
When your army holds a position that it cannot continue to hold indefinitely, should you pull those troops back promptly, or hold the position as long as possible? It depends on what you can gain by holding it and what you might lose.
In this case, there is nothing to lose by fighting in court except the cost of paying some lawyers. Therefore, Biden's duty is to hold that position for as long as possible. Delaying the drilling is good in itself, and the fight to delay it will inspire climate defenders and help win the next election.
The delay also creates an opportunity for the situation to change. In 2025 it may be possible to pass a law — perhaps a carbon tax — that would make Chevron abandon the project.
Thugs committed violence against the property of protesters at Cop City while trying to find evidence for "terrorist plots" in protest supplies.
The actions of the thugs are calculated to spread terror among civilians who are only exercising their legal rights. That's terrorism, pure and simple.
How Biden plans to bail out the depositors of failed banks, including large deposits not officially covered by FDIC, using funds accumulated by FDIC.
If this sort of thing becomes frequent, it may call for increasing the fee rates of FDIC.
Senator Sinema voted for the Republicans' bank deregulation law in 2018, after accepting campaign funds from Silicon Valley Bank's lobbyists.
21 Republican legislators in South Carolina supported a bill to impose the death penalty for "homicide" against a fertilized egg. That much strong support shows that that religious fanaticism has become mainstream in the Republican Party. Women, Republicans want to kill you.
This bill would punish not only abortion, but also some methods of birth control that prevent a zygote from implanting and generating a placenta.
The EPA has taken a small step to limit PFAS in drinking water.
US citizens: call on Secretary Haaland to reduce single-use plastic in national parks by 90% by 2025.
US citizens: call on Congress to block the merger of Albertsons and Kroger supermarkets.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Biden to propose a new FCC commissioner who follows Free Press Action's recommendations.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the deportation thugs to close abusive deportation prisons and not open new ones.
*Ohio sues Norfolk Southern over toxic train derailment.*
That selfish and greedy organization is happy to profit by putting the public at risk. But if it loses this lawsuit, that could compel it to adopt better safety standards.
*Conservation groups sue to stop the Willow Oil Project in Alaska’s Western Arctic.*
Presenting demographic statistics clearly by imagining a world of 100 people.
In the name of "energy security", UK prime minister Sunak wants to focus on slow, inefficient and iffy approaches.
It looks like the real goal is to continue the extraction and combustion of carbon as long as possible. Is this an example of "carbon capture"?
Most of the major companies in the UK have imposed big price increases simply because the system has nothing to hold them in check.
Raising interest rates, supposedly to reduce inflation, does nothing to stop them. But it is very useful for the rich, and inflation makes a great excuse.
Robert Reich explains the history of US bank regulations since the great depression: a conflict between the public and the rich, with politicians choosing which side to take. He concludes with calling for a return to the New Deal regulations including the Glass-Steagall Act, to "make banking boring again."
Bernie Sanders has called for this too.
In my view, the 2000s bail-out of the rich might have been ok if combined with a bailout of homeowners plus increasing taxes on the wealthy and on businesses so as to pay for it.
*Warren Calls for Clawing Back Pay, Bonuses for Silicon Valley Bank Executives.*
Biden approved the "Willow" fossil fuel development in Alaska, which will have deadly consequences around the world.
He thought that protecting other areas of Alaska would somehow compensate for the damage of these additional emissions. But environmental activists are not going to forgive damaging our air and nature in one place on account of choosing not to damage it somewhere else.
*Meat, dairy and rice production will bust 1.5C climate target,* those being the high methane emission foods.
US citizens: phone your senators and representative and call on them to undo the changes made in the Dodd-Frank bank regulation law to the strength it had in 2015.
This law, if not for being weakened by the corrupter, would have prevented Silicon Valley Bank from doing the risky things that caused it to fail.
The Dodd-Frank law was a weaker replacement for the previous Glass-Steagall Act, which was abolished in 1999 by Republicans in Congress. It is described in this history of US bank regulations.
I think we should bring back Glass-Steagall with its full force, rather than an inferior substitute. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
*Silicon Valley Bank's CEO pressed Congress to weaken risk regulations [designed to keep banks from failing].* He said that his bank's operations were risk-free. We now know empirically that that was false.
Basically, our officials (elected and appointed) believe too much of what business executives and their mouthpieces say. I speculate that that is due to lobbying, campaign funds, and the revolving door — in one word, corruption.
Western Europe, from Spain to Germany, is being hit by a shortage of rain (and snow) which is already causing major problems, and likely to get worse as weeks go by with little rain.
Modern agriculture depends on phosphorus fertilizer obtained from mines, but the mines are heading towards exhaustion, leading towards food shortages. Meanwhile, the runoff of fertilizer into waters creates toxic algal blooms, which then convert into planet-roasting methane in the air.
Before modern agriculture farmers gave plants phosphorus as part of urine. Some countries, even some modern ones, still use this method.
30 Christians held a protest march on a street where there are clubs frequented by queer people. The march was condemned as "disgraceful" and "unauthorized protest activity".
I oppose those protesters' views, and I reject their religion; but we must respect their right to protest. Queers especially must defend that right — it was not that long ago that queers met with violent repression holding rallies, and even when not holding rallies. Didn't right-wingers call them "disgraceful" when they did not disguise their orientations and identities?
Faux News edited the security camera footage of insurrectionist Jacob Chansley on Jan 6 to omit his criminal acts, then claimed that the absence of those scenes exonerates him.
What liars say doesn't prove anything, except, occasionally, that they lie.
The autopsy results show that protester Manuel Paez Terán had his hands up when the thugs shot him and killed him, in Cop City.
The proposed Railway Safety Act is a change for the better, but it has flaws that need to be fixed.
*The Far-Right's Culture Wars Are Just a Distraction So Oligarchs Can Keep Looting the Working Class.*
I agree that that is a large part of the purpose of these "culture wars," but they do have a secondary purpose: to radicalize supporters so that they give way completely to hatred.
Robert Reich: *The Guardrails Against Greed Capitalism Must Have.*
The British government's stated commitment to reduce greenhouse emissions was unable to stand up to airline lobbying to cut taxes on flying.
This also shows that the supposed need to limit the deficit is limited to the people who don't count (for Tories), and doesn't apply when interests that are really important want a boost.
The FBI director acknowledged that the FBI had bought location tracking data. Data about Americans, no less. But this scandal is being understood only at the superficial level.
The most superficial scandal here is that the FBI bought location data about Americans in order to track them.
A deeper scandal is that the company which collected the data was able to sell the data without asking permission of the users the data is about.
The deepest scandal here is that the company was able to collect location data about Americans. For real privacy, we need to require systems to be designed so as not to track people's life activities.
No systems should be able to keep track of where people go, what they do there, or who they communicate with.
UK ministers are disrespecting permanent staff of government agencies to the point where those become sycophants, giving the advice that ministers want to hear.
Perhaps this is why the UK government carries out almost any policy incompetently.
Thru April 16.
A documentary about Julian Assange is touring US cinemas. The tour continues till mid-April.
Each showing is followed by a Q&A discussion with Julian's father and/or his brother.
In calculating various people's effective tax rate, there are decisions to make. Deciding wrong leads to giant confusion.
The history of the end of dependence on whale oil may have lessons for the end of dependence on fossil fuels.
A heavy snowfall in California is crushing trees and buildings.
The heavy storms in California result from global heating. This won't be the last one that drops snow instead of rain. I have a feeling that in isolated mountain areas most of the inhabitants will have to move away.
Heavy rains may reduce the fire danger, if they are frequent enough.
The US continues to hold on to art done by prisoners in Guantanamo even when prisoners are allowed to leave.
Online services that allow advertising tend to pass through a transformation known as "enshittification".
First, the service shows users what they want to see. Then it shows users with high priority whatever businesses pay it to show them. Finally, it shows users with even higher priority whatever will keep them spending more time on the site — at which point the users and the advertisers hate it but feel they don't have an option to refuse.
I do refuse. It just happens that these disservices tend to require users to run nonfree client software, and I refuse to do it. Thus, by defending my control over my computing, I avoid the shit too.
I think that the key to ending enshittification is to pass laws to change the funding model.
Right-wing religious fanatics in several states propose bills to prosecute women for having abortions. In the past, anti-abortionists said they did not want to do this. But success encourages fanatics to compete to see who can be the most extreme.
Suggesting that the UK and the US help Afghan civil society organize with a view towards possible future opportunities for democracy there.
The US system of "guest workers" funnels hundreds of thousands of foreign workers into a system of low-wage temporary work that in that verges on slavery. In some cases it is effectively slavery.
*The US central bank is poised to cause untold hardship to millions of Americans.*
This was predictable when Biden reappointed the saboteur-in-chief's appointee to continue as its chief.
*Progressives Back Bipartisan Push to End US Military Presence in Syria.*
I am not sure exactly what US troops are doing nowadays in Syria, and perhaps there is no reason for part of their mission. But the US should help protect the Kurds of Rojava, including with troops so that Turkey and Syria won't attack them.
*Campaign calls for "gender apartheid" to be crime under international law.*
I agree with the substance of this proposal, but "apartheid" is the wrong word for extreme patriarchal. Calling it that distorts the meaning of the word "apartheid." That word's fundamental idea is separation, and extreme patriarchy does not try to divide up men from women as if they were two separate peoples that should never mix.
Planet-roaster businesses are lobbying the EU to weaken its campaign to reduce fossil fuels for heating so that it would allow biofuels, and hydrogen made from fossil fuels.
Biofuels as they currently exist either cause deforestation (wood chips) or compete with farming food (corn products). They should be eliminated too.
If we can ever make fuel from the waste products of farming, they might be better.
*How to break the Xi-Putin axis? Biden must engage with Beijing.*
That is good advice for the first step, but it isn't a map to the desired destination.
(satire) *SpaceX Crew Member Realizes He [had been] Fired After Being Locked Out Of Capsule.*
(satire) *Mitch McConnell Bankrupted By 3-Day Stay In Hospital.*
Silicon Valley Bank's collapse would have been prevented by the former bank regulations that Republicans eliminated in 2018.
Three women allegedly helped another woman obtain abortion pills which she used in Texas. Her ex-husband is suing the three for a million dollars for "killing" the fetus.
I wonder how he got ahold of their text messages.
Unless those women have quite high incomes, his winning this case would leave them in poverty for the rest of their lives.
Tories appointed a former minister of deforestation to work for "Natural England", whose mission is to protect nature in England.
You can't get more blatant contempt for the nation and the people than this.
*Iran and Saudi Arabia agree to restore ties after China-brokered talks.*
A priori, this decrease in hostility could reduce conflict in the middle east. It might lead the way to more reconciliations, such as perhaps peace in Yemen.
However, both of those governments are fanatical Islamists. If they join forces for religious repression, that will not be good for the world.
The BBC has surrendered to right-wing pressure by refusing to broadcast a David Attenborough program that would make right-wingers angry.
Verra, which organizes many suspect "carbon offsets" whose validity is now recognized as questionable, says it will redesign the offset system.
Hotter fires are not just burning the existing conifers in parts of the US west, they are also killing seedlings so that no new conifers can grow.
Artificial turf is suspected of causing cancer.
Right-wingers plan to ask the Supreme Court to enforce the long-disused Comstock Act to prohibit mailing abortion pills and abortion information.
*Fossil fuels received £20bn more UK support than renewables since 2015.*
*One-fifth of money given directly to fossil fuel industry was to support new extraction and mining.*
(satire) *[Governor] Ron DeSantis Oversees Program Offering Florida Students Free Force-Fed Meals.*
*House Freedom Caucus Economic Hostage-Takers Issue Latest Ransom Demands.*
Comparing various stories about which opponents of Putin bombed the Nord Stream pipelines and what relationship they had with the US government.
Canadian "mounted" thugs are being investigated for cruel violence towards environmental protesters.
Gigi Sohn withdrew from candidacy as FCC commissioner.
Shortly before her announcement, Manchin said he would refuse to vote for her. He has been toying with the issue sadistically for two years.
Free Press Action describes the qualities that the new nominee for the FCC should have.
The US is moving to restrict "technologies" that threaten US national security. Precisely what "technologies," "restrict" and "threaten" mean is not clear.
The threat is real, but it does not come only from companies based in certain more-or-less hostile countries. Israel is a US ally, but Israeli companies make products that threaten the freedom of Americans (along with everyone else).
What's more, US companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon threaten the national security (in a broader sense) of the US. And even when they are not being used in a way that threatens the security of the US, they collect personal data about many Americans in a way that can is often used to oppress them.
I believe the solution is to prohibit the collection of personal data. Not just "without consent," since they can always make most people "consent."
*EPA Proposes Improved Wastewater Treatment Standards for Coal-fired Power Plants.*
On a global scale, pollution of water by burning coal is a secondary problem. It could kill millions of people over decades, whereas greenhouse gas emissions can destroy technological civilization and kill billions. However, as long as coal-burning power plants exist, we should make sure they don't pollute our water. And this requirement will convince many owners that it isn't worth continuing to operate the plants.
South Africa has decided to "downgrade" its embassy in Israel as a rebuke for the occupation policies that amount to apartheid.
The Tory plan for total repression of boat people is a rejection of fundamental human rights as well as an example of the performative cruelty used for right-wing radicalization nowadays.
It would violate many important treaties with the rest of European countries.
The latest Faux News lie campaign has the support of House Speaker McCarthy and helps the bullshitter.
Scientists have successfully "revived" frozen viruses found in permafrost and they were able to infect cultures of amoebas. The scientists chose those virus because they had determined from studying the virus DNA that amoebas were their target.
It is possible that other frozen permafrost viruses could infect various other kinds of life. It is not impossible that they could cause pandemics.
However, the world is full of viruses that might do this, infecting various kinds of animals. It seems to me that the additional danger of permafrost viruses is a small fraction of the danger we already face.
It is difficult to do empirical studies of the effectiveness of mask requirements, partly because there is no objective way to determine how often any person wears a mask (or which kind, properly or not, etc.) A group of scientists did a meta-study and found some evidence in favor of concluding masks reduced Covid, but not enough for real confidence.
Then one of them, who had antimask leanings, made the bizarre claim that the evidence supports the opposite conclusion. But that seems to be misleading words.
When US food prices in bulk went up last year, retail businesses raised their prices more than the commodity prices. Now bulk prices are decreasing, but those businesses are not reducing retail prices.
The cause of this is — not enough competition, after too many mergers.
Biden's proposed 2024 budget would improve many kinds of help for non-rich Americans, though not as much as is needed.
It also reduces future deficits, by increasing taxes on the rich.
It will not be easy to get any of this through the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, nor through the Senate where Manchin can block it. Robert Reich says that Biden knows it is impossible and the point of it is to present his goals and to influence negotiations.
Those are useful things to do to influence the outcome.
The amount of microplastics in the ocean is growing exponentially. As long as so much microplastic is being dumped, attempts to clean up the ocean are futile.
US railroad workers call for nationalization of the railroads on the grounds that billionaire stockholding executives will always skimp on public safety for the stockholders.
Every time external power to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is cut off, it risks leading to a meltdown that would pollute a large region.
It is easy to say that we "can't allow this to continue," but we have no obvious way to stop it except for Ukraine to surrender to Putin. the challenge is to find a way to reduce the danger that Ukraine and Putin will both accept.
Michigan has repealed the Republican law that allows businesses to hire workers that don't pay dues to support the union. That law gave businesses another way to attack unions.
*Rising temperatures in tropics to lead to lower coffee yields and higher prices, study suggests.*
*[Rep. Ilhan] Omar Unveils Bill to Block US [military] Aid to Human Rights Abusers.*
With the world dividing into blocs, and repressive regimes on every side, I don't know if the US is in a strong enough position to refuse alliance with all of those regimes. I think that in the 1990s it could have done so, but it did not give priority to that goal.
*Norfolk Southern's "Safety Plan" Includes Automation That Could Further Endanger Workers.*
It also replaces workers with machines that can't check for all the problems human workers can spot.
*Smoke from Australian bushfires depleted ozone layer by [3%] to 5% in 2020, study finds.*
Global heating will cause more and bigger fires, until most of the trees are gone.
Some British lawyers say that trials of protesters which forbid them to state the reasons for their actions violate their human rights.
At the very least, they are being denied the right to present a defense of necessity or a defense of the public interest. That in itself is an injustice.
*Demand Your Cable Service Provider Make FOX News Channel Optional!*
Refugees from China are trying to get to the US by land from Colombia. This just as Biden searches for policies not to ever let them in.
One person interviewed told the reporter that he would eagerly go to Taiwan to fight a Chinese invasion. It occurs to me that if he wants to be able to make a real contribution to that fight, he needs to go there now and start training. Does anyone know whether Taiwan would welcome volunteers who come to join its army? Perhaps it is too hard to be sure they are not spies or saboteurs.
A rumor coming out of the US government says that it is considering a deal to promote exports of US methane to Europe by falsely labeling it as "green."
Everyone: denounce Exxon for keeping its research about global heating secret.
People often mispronounce the name "Exxon".
Comments on Europe's strategic situation.
*Artwork referring to abortion [ordered] removed from Idaho public college exhibition [in the name of Idaho's censorship law.]
Robert Reich: raising interest rates is not effective for reducing spending nowadays because most of the spending is done by rich people who are profiting from the interest rate increases.
Republicans have changed the rules of the House of Representatives to make it easy to defund any specific government program, in the name of "saving money".
A 2020 article about the need to defend freedom of speech even for those we oppose is just as pertinent today. Do keep in mind that "the president" criticized in this article was the bullshitter, not Biden.
Repression in Atlanta: protesters held a rally with music, about a mile away from the site where Cop City is supposed to be built. Thugs accused them of "domestic terrorism" for acts of vandalism which there is no evidence those people had anything to do with.
This reminds me of the Haymarket martyrs.
This calls to mind the absurd charges that fascists such as Putin and Modi use to crush dissent.
These thugs are sending a message: "We are fascists with the power. We spit on truth, justice, and law."
The US military is allegedly refusing to give the International Criminal Court evidence of Putin forces war crimes.
That action is discreditable in itself, but the motive is even more discreditable: to protect US soldiers accused of war crimes from someday being prosecuted by the ICC.
The right way for a country to prevent its soldiers from being prosecuted by the ICC is for the national government to prosecute those war crimes. The ICC exists as a backup method for cases where countries fail to prosecute their own war criminals.
The US supports the right side of this conflict, but it supports the wrong side in others, including the war in Yemen.
An investigation found that the Louisville thug department has systematic tendencies toward thuggish behavior, especially towards blacks.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I denounce bigotry, and normally I will not link to articles that promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles that I consider particularly important. That article is one of the exceptions.
Biden proposes to increase the Medicare tax on the rich so as to provide sufficient funds for Medicare until 2050.
Big Pharma has convinced the US government to strive to the utmost to prevent Americans from buying prescription medicines abroad to save money. Medicines are more expensive in the US because the US government has a decades-long tradition of helping Big Pharma gouge. Their pretext is that people would import opioids that way, but few people try that.
Thousands of Twitter accounts, which appear not to represent real people, are supporting the bullshitter and criticizing the other Republican candidates.
Overuse of fertilizer on three continents is stimulating the growth of floating sargassum seaweed. Tons float onto coasts, producing toxins and harming land animals including humans.
The typical single-use water bottle uses up a lot more water than it can contain.
I try hard to avoid single-use water bottles, using them only as a last resort. As a result, the number I use per year in the US is just a handful. Even in Europe I don't use them often.
Florida Republicans will criminalize the taking of abortion pills.
There is an exception for rape an incest but you have to prove somehow that it was rape or incest — very difficult to do.
"Exceptions to abortion bans are often useless and are only included to make extreme restrictions seem more reasonable."
*The United States of America has to choose between imposing a sacrifice on the rich, by increasing their taxes, or imposing a sacrifice on the poor, by decreasing their health care. The vast majority of the people, including many rich people, want to tax the rich.*
US citizens: call on U.S. pharmacies to provide abortion pills to customers; don't let Republican bullies convince you to cut them off.
US citizens: call on the Georgia Department of Natural Resources to block mining near the Okefenokee swamp, which is a wildlife reservation.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
Calling for improvements when the Medicare-for-all bill is reintroduced in this Congress.
Republican fascists are infiltrating the institutions of power in the US, aiming for a position where they can win some sort of coup.
A group of indigenous Australians in New South Wales want to build housing on an area of forest that needs protection. The state government blocked the plan, so they played the "indigenous card."
The government of New South Wales is right-wing, and in general fails to defend the environment. That means it often deserves criticism. This seems to be an unusual case where it did defend the environment.
*Israeli military reservists refuse to train in protest at far-right government.*
Teenage girls are developing social structures and institutions to a plague of harassment by the many misogynist teenage boys.
Jamaica has got good results from treating the vast majority of the mentally ill without hospitalization.
With mental illness increasing in other countries, maybe that approach would be good to adopt.
The exiled leader of Belarusian opposition suggests that putting more pressure on Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus and Putin's flunky, will help defeat Putin's attack on Ukraine.
How stock buybacks harm the public and the nation.
What the newly agreed global ocean treaty needs in order to be effective.
*Defusing "Methane Bombs" Key to Averting Climate Catastrophe.*
Monitoring of people's mental states by measuring their brainwaves is close to the point of threatening cognitive liberty. We need to defend it.
The threat to cognitive liberty is not new. Brainwashing systems, such as applied in China (and especially to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang) attack cognitive liberty. The US, Canada and some other countries set up brainwashing systems to apply to indigenous children. Disinformation campaigns existed before computers.
However, supporting brainwashing with monitoring of subjugated people's individual mental states makes the threat harder to resist.
These systems depend inherently on making them use nonfree malware or else devices that are imposed on them.
The ballot initiative to legalize abortion in Ohio has been approved for a vote.
Calling on people to choose carefully which words to use or avoid.
I was glad to see another that criticizes the use of "appropriate" as an accusation as a "bludgeon." The term is subjective and vague, so it lends itself to bullying and harassment by people who try to impose their views demands on everyone else.
In regard to the expression "you guys", that used to imply adult men only. However, since a few decades ago I've often heard it used for groups of adult women as well. Maybe it is no longer incorrect for the author's classes.
But we don't have a good base word for names of groups of adults of various genders. "Person" tends to make the compound words too long and cumbersome.
How about "mensch", copied from German? How would you feel about being called a "firemensch"?
Most Britons have recognized that leaving the EU was an economic disaster. Yet neither major party advocates undoing the disaster, which would be easy enough with a simple agreement. The Tories have accepted making such an agreement limited to Northern Ireland; since all of the UK would benefit from that, there is no reason except fantasies to refuse.
Britons should have listened to Corbyn, who stated that a customs union would be his goal.
An agreement limited to trade won't correct all the problems caused by leaving the EU. For instance, the Tories are about to make a human rights disaster too.
The Mormon church was fined $5 million for concealing investments amounting to around $30 billion. The concealment lasted over 20 years.
Is this fine large enough to deter such crimes? I doubt it.
Perhaps long-term concealment of data that are supposed to be reported annually should result in an annual fine. That way, the total fine would be around $100 million. But that would only 0.3% of the amount concealed — still too small, I think.
Doctors in Texas are terrified of the repression around abortions; they don't dare say the word to a patient, even when the patient needs an abortion for medical reasons.
Florida Republicans have proposed a law saying that bloggers who are paid to write about elected officials must register as lobbyists.
I have a suspicion that registration will require running nonfree Javascript, and paying likewise. That is definitely an injustice. However, is it an injustice to require them to register?
I don't think that people who are paid to write articles for or against an elected official are considered lobbyists if it is not for their own blogs. If I am right about that, it is unjust to impose that requirement specifically on individual bloggers.
Jimmy Carter is an evangelical Christian with progressive political views. Back when he was young, most evangelicals championed progressive politics.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine will never abandon Bakhmut.
The policy of "no retreats," or "defend territory at all costs," is likely to be disastrous in war. Such inflexibility makes an army vulnerable. Bakhmut is worth nothing to Ukraine for the war unless defending it gives Ukraine a tactical advantage.
Same-sex couples do as well in raising children as different-sex couples.
*Groups Sue to Stop Biden From Offering 73 Million Acres to Oil Drillers in Gulf of Mexico.*
*Israel is at a crucial crossroads: it can save itself or slide into despotism.*
Alas, one can say the same thing about the UK, and the US, as well as some other countries with a history of democracy.
*Iran pledges to restore monitoring equipment at nuclear sites, says IAEA.*
So there may indeed be hope of avoiding Iran as a nuclear power, if Biden wants to make the effort.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the PRO Act, which will facilitate unionization.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to affirm the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
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US citizens: call on the Senate to stop the practice of allowing the senators from a state to veto any appointment of a federal judge in that state.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
*Stop Rewarding Destroyers of Our World and Punishing Those Defending It.*
One proposed repression has been removed from the Tories' bill for repression of protests: it won't allow arrest of journalists for covering protests.
That protecting journalists from arrest had to be done with a special exclusion — roughly "journalists covering a protest have an exemption" — demonstrates that this law threatens the rights of people in the vicinity of a protest even if they are not joining in the protest.
Jailing protesters is bad enough; jailing people for being near a protest is an additional step towards repression.
Some companies, when making a car loan, require drivers to use a machine that tracks all the car's movements.
This demonstrates the uselessness of a "consent" requirement as protection for your privacy. If companies say, "If you don't consent to total tracking, you don't get a car," your "choice" is a fiction.
*Oil CEOs Should Be Barred From Global Climate Summits, Not Running Them.*
Efforts to solve critical world problems, including coming climate disaster, are hamstrung by their fundamental structural organization: "multistakeholderism", which means the corporations doing the worst harm have the power to thwart all progress.
*Second train derails in Ohio but carried no hazardous materials, company says.*
This second derailment demonstrates that train disaster is not a rare, freak accident, and thus supports the insistence on safety improvements: better brakes, larger crews, sick pay, etc.
There was a last-minute breakthrough in negotiations for a global ocean conservation treaty. With organizations such as Greenpeace praising it, I expect I would be pretty happy with it.
One issue where I might have expected bad decisions was that of control over "genetic resources" — scientific discoveries that could be made by studying the genes of ocean life. There have been demands for harmful policies that would declare countries to be the "owners" of genomes found in species found in those countries. That would be unjust.
I can't be sure from this article, but I think this treaty chooses a better approach, that would distribute some of the income from some sorts of activities to some poor countries. I see nothing wrong with that.
Ukraine is reinforcing the defenders of Bakhmut with "elite units" as the Putin forces get closer to encircling that town. I have to wonder, is it tactically wise to send the best units into a town that may soon be cut off? That risks losing them for no gain.
There is nothing important about Bakhmut except that the Putin forces keep trying to capture it. I think it may be more efficient to pull out of Bakhmut now and defend the next town. If it takes the Putin forces 6 months to capture each town, it will take them decades to conquer all of the Donetsk region. The war won't last that long.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act, so Afghan refugees can become citizens instead of being expelled.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
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US citizens: call on Congress to reject the Republicans' Maximally Unfair Tax Act.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
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*"Fair and Balanced"? Murdoch’s private messages show Faux News was instructed to help Republicans.*
Lukashenko has imprisoned the most prominent human rights activist of Belarus, Ales Bialiatski, supposedly for smuggling.
(satire) *High Cost Of Child Care Forcing More Toddlers To Work Their Way Through Preschool.*
New York City now has a law requiring fast food employers to give cause to justify firing anyone. It has already hit Starbucks' union busting.
Blackstone's strategy is to profit based on events that make Americans suffer. The current instance of that strategy is buying millions of family homes at the height of Covid-19, and now raise the rents and evict the families.
Various proposed laws would increase the taxes Blackstone pays and reduce the pain it can cause. One is to eliminate the carried interest deduction.
Another is the Billionaire's Income Tax.
I advocate prohibiting any one business or alliance of businesses from owning more than one residential building. That would make a lot more competition for rentals.
MIT named its "College of Computing" after Schwarzman, the founder of Blackstone. If you are at MIT, that is an appropriate place to protest him.
Some Republicans admire Putin and say so. Now the shock jocks among them are arguing against support for Ukraine as a way to appear audacious.
Modern day indigenous Australians say that Captain Cook's men "stole" spears from the aboriginals they met at Kamay.
Wikipedia (I don't have access to a better reference) transmits a report from the other side: that the aboriginals at Kamay fought with the British sailors each time those landed. The term "steal" does not fit that sort of situation.
Either or both accounts may be distorted, but I see no reason in the article to endorse the indigenous interpretation of "stealing", and no obligation to "return" the spears.
Increasing wildfires in northern hemisphere forests could start a chain reaction of increasing release of CO2.
Ford envisions making cars harass the driver if the company wants to repossess the car. It expressed this by filing a patent application for the malicious idea.
Whether this idea is patented or not, or by which company, is just a detail. What is significant is that "connected" cars make this possible and easy for any company to use on people. The car could even refuse to start at all — or start spontaneously and drive itself. And the manufacturer will always know where the car is located at any time.
A railroad manager was recorded telling workers not to report broken railroad cars for repair — lest it cause delays. This seems to reflect general industry practice.
Such outright disrespect for safety doesn't surprise me. Is it punished as a crime? It ought to be.
*New York Gov. Kathy Hochul calls for new rail safety regulations — after rejecting [New York State] safety legislation requiring trains to be staffed with at least two crew members.*
More confirmation that her actual political alignment is "plutocratist."
An oil tanker sank in the Philippines and now threatens to pollute protected marine areas — meaning it causes danger of extinction.
The world's approach to this sort of disaster is not systematic. A systematic approach would design ships and sailing rules to provide redundant protection so that there will be no such leaks.
* Mobile billboards on how to get access to [abortion] pills by mail are being driven through college campuses in 14 states.*
This is a brilliant move — both helping the enemy's victims and building up the movement against them.
US citizens: call on Biden to kick Faux News out of the White House press pool, for knowingly spreading misinformation.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Everyone: support a worldwide end to unsustainable logging.
To see the acknowledgment page, you will need to eliminate all the CSS in the page. Icecat has a menu command to do that: click right on the page.
Some bird species are injured in the stomach by the small pieces of plastic they eat.
*Call to "Boycott Walgreens" Erupts After Company Caves to Right-Wing on Abortion Pills.*
Various US cities are taking a stand in favor of a universal gratis medical system.
A school in England replaced a temporarily removed mirror with posters suggesting that makeup is an addiction and you're better off not learning to feel dependent on it.
This led to various misunderstandings which I think are not very interesting, since they were responses to incorrect surmises about intentions. However, that provocative statement is interesting to think about.
(satire) *[Chicago] Finally Safe After Every Single Resident Hired As Police.*
US citizens: call on Biden to protect communities from the effects of of railroad companies' greed.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators to urge them to protect the added funding given to the IRS — which it uses to audit rich people instead of poor people.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
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US citizens: phone your senators and ask them to co-sponsor the Stock Buyback Accountability Act of 2023. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: organize to support the constitutional amendment to deny human rights to corporations.
This is complementary to the Democracy for All amendment, now reintroduced in Congress. That would reestablish the power to regulate campaign contributions by rich human beings as well as by corporations. But the idea that corporations are entitled to human rights does harm in many areas. We need to erase that too.
US citizens: call on Congress not to continue the tax cuts for the wealthy that were adopted under the corrupter.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
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Lab accidents that can cause leaks are more common than politicians suppose. Whatever may have happened with SARS-CoV-2, we need to take care to avoid some future leak that could start a pandemic.
We also need to take care to avoid future contact with wild animals that could start a pandemic. I disagree therefore with the article's final sentence. Given that both dangers are real, which one actually happened in 2019 makes little difference.
OSHA is investigating the high accident rate at Amazon warehouses.
You can reduce it by boycotting Amazon as I do.
Starmer's systematic ban on leftist candidates rejected the only plausible candidate. In response, the whole of the local Labour Party organization has resigned in protest.
People living near the River Ouse in England want to protect it from pollution. That's a good thing to do, but their method is based on a philosophical absurdity: to assert that the river itself is a person and has rights.
Giving corporations the same rights as people has worked out badly. Attempts to give fetuses the same rights as people causes grave injustice.
I forecast that the attempt to treat rivers as if they were people will cause no end of bad consequences as people (and as well as corporations, fetuses and rivers) deduce other absurdities from that absurd premise.
Furthermore, the more entities that are not people are treated by our legal system as if they were people, the harder it will be to stop treating corporations as if they were people.
A neurologist has found patients suffering from some unidentified malady and suspects it is due to exposure to glyphosate.
There is also evidence that glyphosate in farm runoff water is causing toxic algae blooms in the ocean and even in reservoirs.
*On How Tech Lobbyists Lobotomized NY’s Right To Repair Law With Governor Kathy Hochul’s Help.*
Hochul seems to be quite a plutocratist; she tried to put a right-wing judge on the state supreme court, and Democrats rejected the nominee.
How US supermarkets collect lots of valuable data about customers.
They can track you if
I expect that the store can also track you if you pay with something other than cash, and if you ask for a delivery.
(satire) *Los Angeles Warns Residents Not To Touch Poisoned Food Left Out To Deal With Homeless Infestation.*
British Columbia will provide gratis prescriptions of various contraceptive products to female residents. I fully support this policy.
It is amusing how the article struggles to describe which residents the offer applies to. It faced a struggle because it has accepted a limited version of English in which there are no words for an individual's physiological sex, only words for gender. Contraception knows nothing of gender roles; it is concerned only with physiological sex.
The article does not entirely succeed in specifying who the offer is meant for. Does the offer include all transpeople (even trans-women)? Does it include all people who identify as non-binary? My guess is no, because that would be absurd in practice, but I can't be entirely sure. Maybe trans-women will be offered female contraception that they don't have a natural way to use.
The US government says there is no Russian "energy weapon" that could make embassy staff sick.
There are energy weapons — for instance, the laser that a Chinese warship pointed at a Philippine supply ship — but when those are used there is little doubt.
Iran is basically ready to refine uranium sufficiently to make atomic bombs.
We can thank the bullshitter for canceling the non-nuclear deal with Iran, followed by Biden who gave low priority to restoring the deal.
A federal judge found Starbucks guilty of systematic illegal union busting, and ordered Starbucks too undo numerous actions.
I expect that Starbucks will appeal, refuse, appeal, refuse, and so on. It can afford to pay lawyers to do this forever. We need to give the NLRB enough power to give big companies big punishments for spitting on workers' rights.
* Evidence collected from Kherson … shows Russian torture centers were not "random" but instead planned and directly financed by the Russian state, according to a team of Ukrainian and international lawyers headed by a UK barrister.*
Biden is expected to veto a pernicious bill that would prohibit retirement investment plans from taking account of probable future investment losses likely to be caused by environmental damage, and whether the company respects the well being of workers and customers.
Plutocratist politicians apparently want to steer us into investing in dishonest companies, even those that are on course to kill us in a few decades.
Quantifying the growth of autocracy around the world: 72% of humans now live under autocratic regimes. Only 13% live in liberal democracies which respect, more or less, human rights.
Progressives called on Biden not to make the proposed Indo-Pacific "trade deal" a business-supremacy treaty.
It is good news that negotiations have rejected having an ISDS clause like the ones that do so much injustice on other business-supremacy treaties.
Jewish peace groups called on the Biden administration to bar Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich from entering the U.S.
Smotrich calls for wiping out the Arab town where the recent pogrom took place.
The statement describes that as "genocide", but that is an exaggeration. When he did was to advocate an atrocity. I think that is a sufficient reason to refuse to admit him to the US — we don't need to exaggerate it, no need to weaken the term "genocide".
Starmer says it is futile to aim to make the UK treat poor people once again as well as it did before the Tories got into power.
Calling on the EPA to test soil for dioxins in and around the town of East Palestine, where the vinyl chloride derailment occurred.
The US government spent $31.9 billion on mRNA vaccines, including research, and buying millions of doses. Despite this, Moderna gouges the US government on vaccines and Biden lets it.
However, the reason that other companies should be allowed to make these vaccines is deeper than that. Live-saving medicines should never be monopolies.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and ask per to sign the letter by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (CT-03), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), and Rep. Jim McGovern (MA-02), which calls on Biden to tell Israel the US will oppose annexation of the West Bank, and to respect its liberal and democratic traditions.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
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Due to the bullshitter, right-wing Americans are torn between various kinds of bullshit about Covid-19. Should they claim it leaked from a US-funded lab in China ? Or that it is a Chinese bioweapon? Should they support quack treatments, or claim that it was never a real danger at all? Or that it has become harmless?
What they have in common is that they (1) smear the medical establishment fools, (2) attack the government, and (3) create hostility within society. They come from right-wing disinformationists.
Whatever the facts turn out to be, on whatever question, we can't get them from those people.
Breakfast cereal manufacturers are threatening to sue if new US regulations limit how much added sugar a "healthy" cereal can contain, Due to the lunatic Supreme Court decision that said corporations are entitled to human rights, they might even win.
Thus they use their political power to prevent the US government from reducing childhood obesity.
Relating mass layoffs to stock buybacks.
*Scientists prove clear link between deforestation and local drop in rainfall*. The *study adds to fears Amazon is approaching tipping point after which it will not be able to generate its own rainfall*.
*NYC to Pay Millions to Police Brutality Protesters Violently Arrested by NYPD.* The article describes the damage done to some of the protesters by this cruelty.
Compensating the victims is only a start. We need to make sure that uniformed thugs don't do this again. What plan does the current night-mayor offer to achieve that? None, I would expect.
Planet roasters have provided hundreds of millions of dollars to prestigious universities in fields that relate to global heating, apparently with the aim of shaping research results.
In some cases, the projects funded by the planet roasters directly promoted global heating denialism.
Nokia has advanced the Right to Repair campaign by making an Android phone in which it is easier than usual to repair the hardware.
If they make the software easier to repair, by replacing the nonfree parts with free software, that would be a step forward in freedom as well.
The AFL-CIO praises Biden's nomination of Julie Su as Secretary of Labor. Her past career included championing enforcement of labor law against businesses that cheat workers (which many businesses try to do).
It sounds like she is just the person for the job. However, I am disappointed with the journalist who thought that the most newsworthy thing about her is her racial background.
*US justice department sues two companies over pollution in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley."*
At long last, an attempt to enforce the law against toxic pollution!
Sydney thugs admitted in court that their onerous bail conditions on Cherish Kuehlmann, accused of trespassing in a protest, were intended to prevent her from protesting again.
The magistrate rebuked them for the wrong of that idea.
*90% of ice around Antarctica has disappeared in less than a decade.*
UK thugs want the power to place criminal charges directly. With that power, they could do as US thugs to — charge witnesses with "obstruction" for making a video, and charge people being questioned with "resistance" for any delay or strange gesture.
Russia is refusing to cooperate with protection of the beaked redfish, which is being driven to extinction.
China built 100 new coal-fired electric plants in 2022.
(satire) *Supreme Court Questions Whether President Legally Allowed To Improve Americans’ Lives.*
A new PAC says it supports right-wing Democrats, and policies like what mainstream Republicans used to stand for in the 1980s.
It is funded by Jeffrey Yass, who also funded the right-wing takeover in Israel.
US fascists, where they get power, are moving to teach fascism in schools following a path that fascists have used in other countries. The persecution covers books, teachers, and curricula.
A half-baked policy proposal would fail to help US parents support their children, due various problems it does not address.
To be fair, Biden is looking for things he can do with an executive order, since Republicans block any bill that would give money to non-rich Americans.
Bolsonaro encouraged illegal mining in the Yanomami reserve. The miners destroy patches of the forest where they work, and poison the rivers and thus indirectly the Yanomami. Now the Brazilian government has gone back to work driving them out.
Lula says that Bolsonaro's plan was for mining to wipe out the Yanomami — that is, genocide.
Since the US cannot stop the importation of illegal drugs, we have to wonder whether Brazil can stop the extraction of various metals. It may not be quite as difficult, since there are other sources for those metals, which puts a limit on what anyone will pay for them. But indeed miners will keep coming back.
I suppose they are driven by poverty. Poverty results from (1) continuing population growth and (2) the dooH niboR economy. Lula is trying to change both of those; I hope he succeeds, but that sort of thing takes time.
US citizens: call on Sysco to stop using single-use plastic packaging.
If you don't run the Javascript code, the response in your browser may be invisible unless you disable the CSS in the page.
US citizens: call on Buttigieg to put people over rail and airline corporations.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Justice In Policing Act. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: phone your senators and urge them to oppose the Willow oil drilling project in Alaska. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
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US citizens: call on Biden to protect voting rights by executive order.
*China spends billions on pro-Russia disinformation, US special envoy says.*
Deportation thugs raided a factory in Tennessee and violently arrested any non-citizens who were working there. Those arrested sued and won, because the thugs had no order to arrest anyone.
It seems they exceeded their orders from sheer sadism.
The "Derail Act" would require the US to classify trains carrying vinyl chloride, or any other flammable gas or liquid, as "high-hazard flammable trains". They would be required to have to have modern brakes, and other precautions to avoid dangerous spills.
Republicans continue to work on a law to eliminate the requirement for environmental review of potentially dangerous products.
*Research reveals climate crisis is driving a rise in human-wildlife conflicts.*
Information about past changes in climate is now revolutionizing the study of history.
Rebecca Solnit: *Feminism taught me all I need to know about men like [the wrecker] and Putin.*
The article shows that the violence and lies of political authoritarians follow the same tactics as the violence and lies of abusive husbands.
Australia arrested a former US marine pilot whom the US has accused of training Chinese pilots, who faces an extradition hearing. While awaiting that hearing, he is being held in cruel conditions of isolation that call to mind the imprisonment of Julian Assange.
I don't understand how training Chinese pilots, if he did that, can be considered "arms trafficking" or "money laundering". Either that information is garbled, or it is some sort of newspeak. I also don't see how training them constitutes a crime. It behooves the US to explain.
It would be legitimate for the US, Australia and other countries to prohibit their ex-pilots from training Chinese pilots, but it is unconstitutional in the US to make that an ex-post-facto law.
A Colorado sheriff's deputy was given a medal for shooting and killing Richard Ward, who had done nothing harmful or threatening to anyone.
Perhaps it was a medal for creativity in imagining an excuse for killing.
*India enjoyed a free and vibrant media. Narendra Modi's brazen attacks are a catastrophe.*
The article lists a long series of persecutions of journalists on absurd charges.
US society and government policies undermine public schools; then people put all the blame for the bad results on the teachers.
Forgiveness of loans enabled Germany to recover economically after World War II. Now other countries need the same help.
Rebecca Solnit: *Fossil fuels kill more people than Covid. Why are we so blind to the harms of oil and gas?*
WHO's estimate of the number of deaths from Covid is surely far too low, since many countries such as India did not try to count them all. Nonetheless, I expect her statement is still true.
Texas prisoners started a hunger strike to protest solitary confinement lasting years, sometimes even decades.
The pretext for this is anything the authorities take to be a sign of association with a gang, as in California.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and call on per to protect the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
*"Crafting an illusion": US rail firms' multimillion-dollar PR push.* The goal of the PR is to convince officials that it's good for railroads to shift to smaller crews and that safety improvements are not needed.
The UK's cancellation of citizenship as a punishment for crimes is an injustice. Doing it without even a trial to determine guilt for those crimes is flat-out contempt for justice.
In some cases, this has the added consequence of making the condemned-in-advance person stateless as well. This extra affliction and extra injustice must not distract us from the broader injustice of cancellation of citizenship. That is the heart of the matter; that is what the UK must change.
Mexico is considering a change in its policy towards asylum seekers so that they will get hit by Biden's proposed new restrictions.
Norfolk Southern's system to detect bearings in the process of failing was set to too high a threshold, so it didn't warn the crew of the train until it was about to derail.
One could suggest that the government require railroads to generate these warnings at a lower threshold, but the company has a response for that: the other major US railroads are even worse.
The article talks about a possible improved detector that would detect such problems at an earlier stage. Perhaps that should be adopted, once it is ready for use. But we should require safe practices now, and we should not accept the possibility of a technical advance as an excuse not to do so.
Libraries in Texas cannot allow children and teenagers under 15 years old to enter without someone older. And they threaten to call the thugs.
The US is making visas for touring UK musicians much harder to get. Most of the musicians can't afford it.
DeMentis's law that sets up a special state-controlled "local government" over Disney World has taken effect.
At its most basic level, that law does the right thing. A company should not have the powers of a local government. Disney used its economic clout to squeeze that concession from the state, and now that has been undone. However, normally a local government is democratic. The officials of this "local government" seem to be chosen by the state.
I don't believe that DeMentis seriously believes the state must not "treat all the other theme parks differently." On the contrary, what he wants is arbitrary power to treat them differently, power that he can use to bully each one for his own political purposes.
New South Wales (a state in Australia) is planning carbon bombs that would emit 1.5bn metric tons of CO2.
Infrared lights attached to a hoodie can reportedly defeat infrared cameras used for tracking people on the street at night, so that they can't follow the person that wears the hoodie.
Tracking people's movements threatens human rights, so it is good to thwart tracking and surveillance cameras; it would be even better to prohibit them. By contrast, security cameras, which record their images locally in case a crime occurs there but do not allow remote examination, are acceptable because they do not make it feasible to track all the non-criminals.
We should require all cameras that watch public places to be the record-locally security camera type.
US agencies disagree about whether they believe that SARS-CoV-2 spread from animals or leaked from a lab.
I don't think it makes much difference.
It is agreed that deadly viruses can spread from animals; we should take stricter precautions to ensure that does not happen.
Since it is agreed that deadly viruses can leak from labs doing research on them, then we should take stricter precautions to ensure that does not happen.
Which of the two happened this time changes nothing.
Republicans continue feverishly proposing bills to hamper voting or rig elections.
DeMentis's latest bill to impose right-wing ideology on Florida's public universities not only prohibits teaching certain subjects, it also eliminates tenure and will allow fascist state-controlled boards to fire any professor for political reasons at any time.
The owner of Faux News admitted in court that he told presenters to endorse the bullshitter's lies claiming the Democrats stole the election.
This is likely to enable Dominion, a company that makes voting machines, to win its libel suit and collect enormous damages. Whether Faux News could continue to operate after that, I can't determine. Maybe Dominion will end up owning Faux News.
Jewish organizations in the US condemned the pogrom carried out by the fanatical Israeli racists that now control Israel's government.
In Israel, B'tselem said that the state and the army supported the pogrom, as they have done before. "The [fanatics] carry out the attack, the military secures it, the politicians back it," the group said. "It's a synergy."
*[Senator] Scott seeks to impose highly divisive and unpopular social, economic, and fiscal policies that would attack the basic human and constitutional rights along with the well-being of millions of U.S. residents.* The Republican Party agrees with him.
Our next rally for Julian Assange is Saturday, March 4 at 11:30 to 12:30pm. We will gather at Park St. Station on the Boston Common to speak out for Assange and gather signatures on our petition to our senators.
US citizens: call on Biden to invite Ukrainian civil society to the next steering committee meeting.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Biden not to pull out of the New START arms limitation treaty, even though Putin has "suspended" it.
The White House comments lines are +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Standard Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation not to finance the East African Crude Oil Pipeline.
US citizens: call on your U.S. senators to save the bees from neonicotinoids.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
National Public Radio runs mostly on funds from corporations rather than public funds. Lately corporations have preferred to put their money into stock buybacks, so they are donating less and buying less advertising, which is causing big cutbacks at NPR.
The New York Times published an "opinion" article that attacks masks by misrepresenting the conclusions of a medical study. Apparently the Times skipped the fact-checking on that article.
Putin put children and teenagers from Mariupol on TV so they could thank a Putin forces soldier for "rescuing them" … from the devastating shelling by the Putin forces.
They didn't put 2 and 2 together in the TV presentation, and didn't mention the relatives that were killed by the Putin forces in Mariupol.
It is possible that they were speaking honesty when on TV — that they had been taught to forget how their "saviors" intentionally caused the danger they were "saved" from.
Putin's disinformationists persistently misrepresent the situation. I expect that some will refer to the "gratitude" of Ukrainians "saved" from Mariupol, citing this TV program as "proof".
(satire) *[The US] Installs 2,000-Mile-Long Privacy Curtain After Mexico Sees It Naked.*
A pro football player saved money by living in his workplace. I'm not the only one.
A proposed constitutional amendment would reverse the Corporations United decision that allowed corporations to donate ad lib to political campaigns.
I hope to see a fuller description so I can see how this compares to the amendments previously proposed.
Several Democratic states have sued the FDA demanding an end to the restrictions on buying mifepristone. I basically agree, but all depends on the bizarre Republican lawsuit that they filed before a judge who is a trumpet, in a state in the 5th circuit which is full of biased right-wing judges too. The suit offers that judge a chance to try to ban mifepristone nationwide, To fix this could require massive civil disobedience.
Bernie Sanders condemns the US economic system of extreme capitalism as little better than indentured servitude, saying that many US workers can hardly considered to have any freedom except to choose a different master.
*Covid disinformation prompts Royal Society to consider ways of countering forgeries and falsehoods [in science].*
Roald Dahl threatened those who would "correct" his writing after his death with attack by the "Enormous Crocodile".
Jimmy Carter wrote about the injustice of Israeli apartheid in 2006, when Americans were hardly used to the idea.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
That's to put an end to corruption that we have plenty of evidence of.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
This bill by itself is not enough to protect voting rights. A few years ago there was another voting rights bill to do the rest.
US citizens: call on Congress to Ban Partisan Gerrymandering. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The US government accepted a lump sum payment from Moderna for use of US-government-funded technology. That's a tiny fraction of Moderna's increased price for the Covid-19 vaccine.
For the government to accept this was dereliction of duty. The US government had the duty to make Moderna allow vaccine production world-wide, and it didn't try.
An ecosystem can collapse abruptly when the last species fulfilling some crucial role disappears from it. This is likely to happen in many places during this century.
*Former US ambassador accuses Israel of "creeping annexation" of the West Bank.* Plus breaking a former agreement with the US.
More about this.
India had an opposition politician arrested for "insulting the prime minister" (Modi). The "insult" was a quip that suggested that Modi and the coal magnate Gautam Adani were somehow the same person.
Prosecuting people for insulting officials is an attack on human rights, whether in India, in France, or any other country. Modi, je te vois!
*Moderna's "Deadly" Profits Show Public Funding Must Have Strings Attached.*
The US used to attach strings to research funding — all discoveries made by university research done with government funding had to be made available for the government to use as it saw fit. This was eliminated by the Bayh-Dole bill, which sought to convince universities to be aggressive about licensing whatever they can get control over.
That's why nowadays writing software for a university is usually almost as bad as working writing software for a company.
Wage increases account for 18% of Australia's inflation. Increases in business profits account for 69% of it.
In Australia as in the US and Britain, the central bank is run by neoliberals who refuse to recognize these facts.
Mexico is trying to end the use of genetically modified corn and the the weedkiller glyphosate. The US is applying harsh pressure to prevent this.
In effect, the US is once again acting as the tool of specific big businesses.
The vinyl chloride spill from Norfolk Southern's preventable train wreck is part of the consequences of our massive use of plastic. Its costs — in lives and hundreds of millions of dollars — are part of the cost of plastic, which the plastic manufacturers don't have to pay. Instead, we all pay.
The endless round of sequels, offshoots, remakes and "modernizations" is a system for magecorporations to keep on extracting money with old "properties" whose authors died many years ago.
A play about the history and failure of the Lehman Brothers bank harps on their Jewish religion in a way that fuels antisemitism.
The fundamental falsehood which introduces the antisemitism into this story is the idea that grasping for money and disregarding the harm you do is specifically a Jewish practice. If we look around today, we find many billionaires who crush large numbers of people to get more money. In the US, a fraction are Jews, but most are Christians.
For a while in medieval Europe, bankers were mainly Jews — simply because Christian churches called it a sin to led money at interest. European rulers wanted bankers, and with Christians self-excluded, only Jews could take up the trade. But churches dropped that rule a few hundred years ago. The association between banking and Jews is a thing of the past.
Feral hybrid pigs that are hard to track, and kill wild animals, threaten ecological harm in the US.
*Bangladesh shuts down main opposition newspaper.*
The world has been suffering from a rash of repression in the past few years.
*El Salvador crackdown breaks the gangs — at huge cost to human rights.*
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and call on per to continue full support for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The NTSB said that the Ohio train derailment was "100% preventable" and that it was the fault of company practices and policies.
Railroad workers propose several precautions for the US to require for railroads.
They include
Italy has arrested a refugee rescue ship operated by Médecins Sans Frontiers, trying to impose artificial requirements that make it essentially impossible to operate such ships.
Fish caught in Michigan rivers are not safe to eat, due to the levels of PFAS contamination.
Ohio governor DeWine has so much ties to the railroads that one must wonder whether he is serious when he talks about holding them responsible for the vinyl chloride leak.
The original versions of Roald Dahl's books will continue to be published, alongside the new supersensitive versions.
I think this is a good compromise.
*'Biden and Yellen Should Be Ashamed': US Picks Ex-Wall Street Executive to Lead World Bank.*
Biden seems to be moving further into the plutocratist camp.
*Parts of US see earliest spring conditions on record: 'Climate [disaster] playing out in real time'.*
Australians: demand to be allowed to refuse to have your personal medical records stored in a state-wide database.
*Reps. Barbara Lee and Mark Pocan proposed a bill to cut the military budget by $100 Billion.
*Groups Launch World's First-Ever Climate Lawsuit Against a Commercial Bank [for funding fossil fuel projects].*
A Jewish member of the Labour Party objects to Labour's propensity to brand Jews as "antisemitic."
Putin's fake news machine is buying special promotion on Twitter.
Musk has made his support for Putin clear enough already.
The US cheats would-be visitors by making them pay to schedule a visa appointment, and only then showing them that no appointments are available and that they can't get a refund for the useless payment.
The article describes various other absurd restrictions that the author encountered when he sought to go to the US to join a boat race to Cuba. But proving that those restrictions are absurd is a subtler question. To show that "Pay to find out that you can't have an appointment" is viciously absurd is open-and-shut.
Twitter gave advertisers the phone numbers users had specified for two-factor authentication, and advertisers used them to identify the users.
The Tories' plan to handle the growing backlog in asylum applications is to give applicants 20 days to answer a questionnaire in legal English, without legal advice or translation help, and no chance of clarifying errors.
I'm tempted to joke that this seems designed to fail. Alas, with Tories involved, I have a feeling it is precisely true.
A new "luxury" car will come equipped to load various nonfree software cr…apps.
Some of them will distract the driver by showing video. Don't use that while the car is moving!
Since the car has a camera that faces the people in the car, and it is controlled by nonfree software, I expect that sooner or later the car's delivered software will make use of that against those people's interests and will, and they will be unable to stop it.
Google is considering how to respond to a Canadian bill that would require Google and other platforms to negotiate deals with Canadian publishers for permission to retransmit their articles. One possible approach would be to refuse to carry the articles covered by this law. Google has decided to show Canadians what that would feel like, by making all those articles unavailable to some Canadian users.
I have no opinion on whether this law would do good or harm. If it only restricts giant companies such as Google, I don't see anything outrageous about it.
Ms Scaffidi's comment uses misleading words. The law does not require Google to do anything for the journalists who write news articles Google retransmits. Rather, it requires Google to make a deal with the news publishers that the journalists submit articles to. That may wall entail paying those publishers more money, but how much of that would trickle down to human journalists is a question to be investigated.
If Canada dropped the trickle-down plans and changed this law to directly support individual journalists, not only news businesses, I would support it more.
Please don't refer to these news articles as "content" — that term disparages all works of writing and art.
*Car pollution kills more Australians than crashes, new research finds.* Indeed, pollution seems to kill 10 times as many as crashes.
It would be interesting to see a comparison based on the total number of years of life lost to each cause.
I am also curious about similar comparisons for other countries, in particular the US.
*Putin aiming to divide US public opinion with nuclear treaty pullout, experts say.*
It's more of what we've seen several times: "I'm a lunatic with nuclear weapons, so do whatever I say!"
Indian Dalits are becoming successful in India as comedians in the teeth of caste prejudice.
I watched a few minutes of Manaal Patil's show on invidio.us (a proxy for Youtube, which I cannot access directly because it requires users to run nonfree software). He made me laugh. I would have watched the rest but I have to work.
The UK charges environmental protesters with "causing a public nuisance", then forbids them in court from explaining why this "crime" was necessary for the public good.
*Poor People's Campaign, Families Demand DOJ Probe of Over 100 West Virginia Jail Deaths.*
The US has done nothing to hold Dubya accountable for using lies to start an unjust war by attacking Iraq.
Biden's new rules for asylum — which directly contradict US law — seem like they were inspired by the wrecker. People have noticed the hardship imposed by requiring each applicant to carry a snoop-phone that can run a special nonfree app. They have noticed the monetary hardship caused by the price of getting such a phone plus internet access. I have nothing to add to those valid points. But I do notice other injustices, which are common in the form of computing that the US demands of them.
Such a phone is full of unjust nonfree software, and the app is nonfree also. Any nonfree program is inherently an injustice to whoever runs it, and is likely to be malware. That app does facial recognition. I wonder what other malicious functionalities it implements.
I conjecture that there is no need at all for that facial recognition. If a migrant gets an appointment to meet with a human agent, the agent can check the migrant's identity against per papers then.
It would not be terribly hard for the US to set up kiosks in various parts of Mexico where people can do the required communication knowing that a kiosk has no ability to snoop on them through their own computers, or mess with them in any other way.
*Trump’s environmental rollbacks in focus on visit to Ohio toxic train site.*
That's because some of them contributed directly to this accident.
Biden said that he gives Israel total support in its confrontation with Iran. Since Israel is on the brink of war with Iran, in effect this says the US is willing to join in that war.
That risks disaster. It could even start a nuclear war.
I doubt that Iranians who have protested since last fall will declare themselves enemies of their country; I think it is more likely to unite them with the regime.
An Israeli raid on Nablus killed 10 Palestinians and injured over 100. Many were noncombatants.
The occasion for this bloody attack was that two Palestinians accused of belonging to a real terrorist group were at that location. That can't justify attacking so many.
Malcolm X’s family to sue FBI, NYPD and other agencies for covering up information about his assassination.
US citizens: call for the US to adopt a Windfall Profit Tax to respond to record-breaking profits for Big Oil.
US citizens: call on Congress to fund universal school meals. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
*Turkey fines broadcasters for coverage critical of earthquake response [by Turkey's government].*
*Former attorney general in [Arizona] withheld evidence debunking 2020 election fraud [claims by the bullshitter's followers].*
*Methane from Australian coal and gas could be 60% higher than estimated.*
* Anti-Defamation League says all extremist killings last year linked to rightwing extremism and a high number to white supremacy.*
Corpse fetishism is spreading to Europe. The inhabitants of an island demanded "return" of skulls of medieval monks, which they claimed had been "stolen" by academics doing research.
The worst part is, the university which had them gave in to the demand.
If this sort of fetishism were applied to older remains — as some wish to do — all our remnants of Neanderthal humans would be lost to science, each bone "returned" to someone or other.
Imagine if that had happened 30 years ago. We would have been denied the chance to determine that the Neanderthals were among our ancestors and were the same species as we.
The only way human remains can contribute to the world, to the good of present and future humans, is by being studied scientifically. The old bones have more to teach us. We should not let anyone's fetishism interfere.
Norfolk Southern railroad has yielded to public criticism for its avoidable derailment by starting to negotiate about paid sick leave.
The workers deserve that, but meanwhile, the rest of the country deserves safe trains.
Millions of Americans have been compelled to move by the early stages of climate breakdown. In the future it is likely to be tens of millions, and many of them will die early as a result.
But most of them will desperately seek housing in places they can survive, and they will find shortages everywhere, because of bad planning of housing construction.
A few weeks ago I passed through the "Seaport District" in Boston, where expensive new skyscrapers are being built at an absurdly low altitude above sea level. You can see this for yourself since you can look at the buildings and the sea together. What public funds will the owners demand for protection against the danger they brought on themselves?
A lawyer argues in a Florida court that a fetus is the victim of "unlawful and illegal detention" because the pregnant mother-to-be is in jail.
I think the lawyer aims to demonstrate that it is absurd to treat a fetus as a person.
To continue the absurdity, the same argument could be applied to confining a fetus to a single womb.
Some US officials propose to make it a crime to spread election misinformation.
In an abstract sense, that could be legitimate and useful, but I can easily envision Republicans' using this law against people who tell the truth.
Recycling plastic into fuel makes sense in principle, but it can release highly carcinogenic pollution.
If the recycled fuel is safe, I would not criticize it for failing to be "biofuel." In fact, much real biofuel does not actually reduce emissions, because of the fertilizer used to grow the plants.
*Pollutants known as "forever chemicals"… have been found at high levels at thousands of sites across the UK and Europe.*
The UK undercover cops that infiltrated nonviolent left-wing protest groups by forming phony couples acted from an ingrained and systemic attitude of sexism.
Cambridge University students voted in favor of making all eateries on campus vegan.
They did not request more support for vegan students. On the contrary, the request is to make it difficult for other students not to be vegan.
The revisions in Roald Dahl's books go much further than removing insults. They seem to try to impose new taboos on some words and some ideas.
A US court ruled that the relatives of people killed by the September 2001 terrorist attacks cannot take the funds that were seized from the Bank of Afghanistan. Those funds belong to the Afghan people.
*Hundreds of Thousands March in Madrid to 'Defend the Health Service' From Privatization.*
The Spanish medical system is national in scope, and the government of Madrid can't change its structure, but seems to be running it into the ground much as the Tories do in the UK.
*Rail Workers Say They Knew the Train That Derailed in East Palestine[, Ohio,] Was Dangerous.*
A test of a 4-day work week in the UK: out of 61 companies that tried it, 56 decided to continue it.
Biden will try to impose the same extreme restrictions on asylum seekers that the bully tried to impose.
Lawsuits blocked the policy before, but that doesn't mean it will happen again. The case could go to the Supreme Court, which now has more members appointed by the bully.
Seattle has banned discrimination on the basis of caste.
This is important. As the population of Indians in the US increases, their traditional bigotry, and their modern organized bigotry (led by India's ruling party, the Hindu nationalist party), have been gaining in influence.
*Biden Implored to Avert "Carbon Bomb" by Blocking [construction of new] Texas Gulf Oil Terminals.*
*EPA Orders Norfolk Southern to Clean Up Contamination From Ohio Train Crash.*
How railroad lobbyists persuaded senators to let the railroads keep using old-fashioned brakes instead of superior modern breaks.
Sanders proposed to block US aid to Israel because of its anti-democratic moves and its increasing repression of Palestinians.
*Biden urged not to approve oil terminals that could create ‘carbon bombs’.*
*Hunger Cliffs Looms in US With Extra Food Benefits Set to Expire.*
*Did Five Supreme Court Justices Lie to Congress About Abortion Views?* It looks that way.
*UN torture prevention body cancels visit to Australia after access to facilities blocked.*
*Stronger El Niño events may speed up irreversible melting of Antarctic ice, research finds.*
*Paper calls for assessment of impact of sound pollution on cetaceans before firms allowed to mine sea bed.*
*London ship insurers accused of enabling fishing vessels to "go dark",* turning off their tracking devices, probably to fish in territorial waters or in protected zones.
*Banning ideas and authors is not a "culture war" — it's fascism.*
This explains the purpose and operation of DeMentis's censorship law in a way I have not seen before. I did not know the work of the authors that were removed from the AP African American studies course; this article explains the significance of their work and the systematic purpose of censoring them.
In the past, we could count on the Supreme Court to reject censorship laws. I have no confidence in the right-wingers who have captured it to reject the new ones.
Nonetheless, to teach that a person is guilty of past crimes committed by others due to sharing their demographic characteristics is itself an injustice, a form of oppression. It is also unnecessary, if the goal is to teach people to recognize the wrong and reject it. Young Americans are not guilty of the crimes of previous generations, but could easily fall into a life of similar crimes.
We should teach about those past crimes, not to inculcate a feeling of guilt into those who "look like" those who committed them, but to show them what they might become if they are not careful. Instead of teaching, "You were born guilty of that," we should teach, "Watch out — you could become guilty of that. Right-wing extremists such as DeMentis would be glad to get you started."
I wish the article were not marred by showing the fashionable symbol of left-wing bigotry: capitalizing the word "black" and not "white".
Political article: How the US Can Close Guantanamo Prison
US citizens: call on Biden to issue an executive order that guarantees the rail workers the sick leave pay they deserve.
US citizens: support the Social Security Expansion Act of 2023.
US citizens: call on Biden not to try to reimpose the wrecker's ban on giving asylum to people who migrated through some other country.
Modi's tax fraud accusations against the BBC are likely to be a fabrication.
He has a history of using accusations of tax fraud to crush news media that criticize him.
In Syria and Turkey, the earthquakes have left millions of people homeless. I would expect most of them have no food. How can the world provide food for them?
Robert Reich comments on how plutocracy defeated Jimmy Carter.
We should not forget Reagan's scheming with Iran to keep make Carter fail in making a deal to free the US embassy hostages.
A planned merger of two giant railroads would facilitate moving tar sands oil by train.
Tar sands oil is highly polluting and corrosive; we must not allow it to be transported in any fashion.
Israel's government "legalized" several colonies in Palestinian territory, that were made in violation of Israel's laws. In effect, it says that Palestinians have no rights — Israelis can steal land and the government will say "Well done."
Pakistan is on the edge of collapse — economic collapse, political collapse, and climate collapse. Since it has nuclear weapons, it is hard to tell what would happen in the event of such a collapse.
*Florida High School Athletic Association removes all questions about menstruation from required medical evaluation form.*
People suspect that the requirement for women athletes to answer those questions was part of a Republican scheme to cause trouble for women: either for those who are trans, or for those who get pregnant, or for those who have abortions.
*Scientists warn of many dangerous climate feedback loops. Current plans to mitigate climate change may be inadequate.*
In total, the researchers identified 27 amplifying (positive) feedbacks, 7 dampening (negative) feedbacks, and 7 uncertain feedbacks.
Only fools would depend on precisely how far we are from the climate cliff. The wise thing to do is to work harder to stop us before we find out the hard way.
Ancient Khmer jewelry from the Angkor period still exists, and was stolen in Cambodia. The US has sent it back to Cambodia.
I hope that those returning these objects will photograph them first and post the photos for all to see. It would be an outrageous wrong to treat works a thousand years old as copyrighted.
(satire) *Officials Champion Ohio Train Derailment As Deregulation Success Story.*
If an Onion page appears blank, try disabling Javascript entirely or telling LibreJS to blacklist all scripts in the page, then right-click and select item "Reveal hidden HTML". Or use a browser such as lynx that doesn't implement Javascript and CSS.
*Buttigieg Pretends He's Powerless To Reduce Derailment Risks.*
The article explains that there are some wrinkles, but there are ways around them for some cases.
*Wage theft, security issues and health problems on the rise after AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile outsource retail stores.*
There should be strict limits on outsourcing jobs to a subcontractor in the absence of real competition.
US citizens: call on Transportation Secretary Buttigieg to adopt stronger safety rules.
Republicans in many US states are proposing bills to restrict citizens' ability to pass initiative petitions.
Once they have seized the power to rig a state's elections of officials, initiative petitions are the citizens only way to take back control from the Republican tyranny and restore some democracy.
Here's a cheery list of possible commercial applications for machine learning systems (referred to in the article as "AI"). How many injustices, real or probable, can you spot
Here's a hint: John Deere tractors, famous for being designed to make their "owners" helpless to fix them independently, collect data about parts of the field, and can use them to improve efficiency of production. John Deere keeps that data, so this becomes yet another way of subjugating users (farmers, in the case).
As this illustrates, all the moral issues of subjugating users that apply in general to nonfree software and to online dis-services apply to machine learning systems as they apply to other technology.
Professor Sussman, who works on artificial intelligence at MIT, reminds us that machine learning systems are no smarter than Dissociated Press. He reserves the term "artificial intelligence" for systems that understand what they are talking about and know what the facts are.
Australia once again has a legal system which makes distinctions between people based on race. Ironically, those of indigenous descent are first-class Australians this time, and the descendants of immigrants from the past 250 years are the second-class Australians.
Australia, and the people who defend this policy, do not use those terms, of course. But that shoe fits the policy. The practice of capitalizing the words "indigenous" and "aboriginal" underlines the kind of distinction between these classes.
The British colonists (mainly convicts who were sent there as punishment) took the land by force, and killed many aboriginals in the process. Then they set up a society in which indigenous people were systematically denied most or all of the rights of citizenship. This persisted until the late 20th century.
Justice calls for compensation for those wrongs — but not by creating inequality of rights once again.
I agree that the way Kuster is being treated is unjust. However, dividing Australians into first and second class is not the only way Australia can change its legal system to correct that.
One possible solution would be to generalize this new right so as to be applicable to all people whose background is associated with Australia — not solely to people whose background is indigenous.
Another solution that would apply to Kuster is suggested by the issue that the US DACA program partially addresses: people who were brought t the US as children and grew up there but are not citizens. They should have a way to become citizens. Australia should have such a policy too, and that would make Kuster a citizen.
The Guardian's economics editor can see that machine learning systems can eliminate millions of fairly good jobs, forcing millions to join other millions in dead-end poverty.
But he won't look for solutions outside the narrow capitalist system. Trying to train people for better jobs won't do any good if the better jobs are disappearing too.
For the next few decades, we might make a lot more good jobs: construction work to replace our carbon-dependent systems, and medical jobs to care for increasing numbers of old and infirm. Those jobs need to be funded by the public — which implies adding more socialism to our society.
In the long term, to quote a man who spoke at a meeting in Cambridge decades ago, "If the robots make it, we gotta take it!" We must tax the rich and give every person a decent life.
People who are frantic will propose widespread mistreatment to deal with occasional injustices. Here is an example: to protect gig ride drivers from robberies (which occasionally escalate into killings) by requiring every passenger to prove per identity with an official document.
A person whose SO has been killed by criminals can easily demand a massive system of injustice to reduce such crimes. Even, as in this example, to demand it as an afterthought added to other measures that ought to be sufficient by themselves.
A person in that situation can lose sight of the enormity of the demand perse is making on millions of others.
One of the main injustices of gig ride dis-services as they are today — one of the reasons that they merit the term "dis-services" — is tracking passengers: they require passengers to identify themselves by using cell phones and payment cards. Apparently robbers have a way to avoid being tracked; what can it be? Perhaps they steal phones and payment cards to use for this. That is not an option for a law-abiding person; our only way to protect ourselves from tracking dis-services is to reject them entirely.
But even though these dis-services are unjust already, changes in practices that make the tracking more strict and pervasive are important to fight against. Please join in.
Robert Reich explains how billionaires use sports teams to strongarm our governments to subsidize teams and dump the cost on the public.
If your city's stadium is named after a big company, that shows that its government was bought. Is your government still for sale nowadays?
*Santos whistleblower accuses company of covering up extent of Australian oil spill that killed dolphins.*
Senate Democrats estimate that Republican budget cuts, if they shield military spending, "would amount to a 30% cut to all other federal programs. That's a 30% cut to the [National Institutes of Health], opioid addiction and mental health treatment, housing assistance, child care and child nutrition, law enforcement and public safety, science and innovation, and veteran assistance programs."
Robert Reich: *Don’t let Republicans claim the mantle of patriotism.*
An article begs us to sympathize with the artisanal fishers of Colombia, who catch endangered sharks. I do not sympathize. Preventing extinction must take precedence over jobs. The opposite conclusion, combined with human population growth, leads certainly to ecological disaster.
Of course, putting and end to larger-scale fishing of protected species has higher priority. With that achieved, will there be room for a little artisanal fishing of tollo sharks while still enabling their population to recover? That is a factual question and Colombia should act according to the answer.
Spying on other countries, not limited to potential enemies, is normal practice. The Chinese spy balloon was not a reason to go postal. I think it is unfortunate that the US does not have a way to force down a balloon without damaging it.
Israel revokes citizenship for Palestinians convicted of certain crimes, making them stateless.
Some Arabs say that Israel should do the same thing to Jews who commit those crimes. I think that is backwards: it is wrong to make loss of citizenship a punishment.
The tyrant of Nicaragua has revoked the citizenship of dissidents and political opponents.
The prosecutor in Memphis was elected for criminal justice reform. He decided to release the video of Tyre Nichols's killing quickly, and to charge the killers before that, so as to keep protests nonviolent. That succeeded. Here is an interview with him.
He has set an example to judge other prosecutors against.
Starmer's exclusion of the left from running for parliament is effectively a coup, as well as the direct contradiction of commitments he made when he ran for leader of Labour.
In the US, progressive can win election via the (generally plutocratist) Democratic Party because it can't simply veto them from running in Democratic primaries. The plutocratists push hard against them, even dishonestly; nonetheless, in each election, the number of progressive Democrats in Congress increases. In the UK, apparently, such an approach inside the Labour Party is impossible now because its leaders have the centralized power to exclude them.
I can't judge the election strategy questions, but in terms of the the competition between parties, it is clear that Corbyn should move to the Green Party if it will accept him. Appealing for Starmer to relent would be a dead end; as long as they lock out any new left candidates, Corbyn would be nothing but an aging token, with no chance of inspiring anyone else.
One example of a male trans-woman convicted of rape has inspired disproportionate fear among women, and licensed hatred by antitransists, which in turn provokes fear among trans people.
It is an unfortunate social breakdown; is there any way to unbreak this egg?
US citizens: call on Amazon to eliminate plastic packaging.
US citizens: insist that incineration is not recycling.
Here is the message I entered:
The plastics industry and the American Chemistry Council are pushing legislation to reclassify incineration as "advanced recycling." That a dishonest statement to excuse a dishonest policy — specifically to evade the Clean Air Act laws that regulate incinerators. It would not avoid the air pollution, only close the law's eyes to it. Please reject denial-ism and adopt policies to reduce the production of plastic.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the Senate to reject the Republican plan to defund the IRS and protect wealthy and corporate tax cheats.
Everyone, call on Amazon to negotiate with its workers' labor union.
The "collateral murder" video is important not only because it shows US soldiers cheerfully shooting Iraqi civilians, but because it showed that the Pentagon's description of the events was false.
The US wants to imprison Julian Assange for showing the public that video along with other facts about what the US did in its wars. Please show your support for him.
Preventing Assange's extradition will not by itself eliminate the long-term danger to freedom of the press in the US. That calls for overturning or amending the Espionage Act so that it recognizes that publishing secrets about government crimes is not "spying", because the American public is not a foreign power. But defending Assange will be a step towards that vital change.
Seattle (and nearby towns)' school systems asked thousands of students age 10 to 12 to fill out intimate questionnaires, collected from the students by a for-profit company.
The article disregards, of course, the injustice of leading students to run nonfree software. The author is not aware of that underlying issue which affects all school computing. See https://gnu.org/education/.
The US government criterion for whether anonymized data that is "identifiable" is too lax. Even if a "a reasonable person in the school community" could not determine who a record is about, very likely Google or Palantir could.
There is another side to this issue. Students entered information about important personal problems such as using drugs and bullying. Offering the students no help wouldn't be a good alternative. What is the right way to offer such students help with proper confidentiality?
There is a foofaraw about reusing medical implants taken from corpses.
What are the important issues here?
However, the issue of "permission" should not arise — no more for the deceased's implants than for per organs. Their only important use (aside from studying them for research) is to be put into another person and help that person stay alive. No one should have the power to veto that life-saving use.
Senator Scott has modified his drastic proposal to cancel each federal law after 5 years, exempting Social Security, Medicare, and the whole military budget. It would still cancel many other crucial federal programs if the Republicans could block them from being passed again, so it would still be a disaster. Consider the Voting Rights Act (what the Supreme Court has not gutted).
Many Florida universities have sent Governor DeMentis data on students' requests for gender expression medical treatments. Students are campaigning to demand that the other universities not send any.
I use the term "gender expression medical treatments" as a name which describes the treatments in question without presupposing any opinion or judgment about them.
*Nationwide Federal Order Bars Starbucks From Firing Workers for Union Activity.*
I wonder what this order will do to Starbucks to stop it from disregarding the order and firing workers for union activity just as it has done until now.
How China's arrested protesters and human rights lawyers are treated.
Steven Donziger: The Ohio spill of carcinogenic, toxic vinyl chloride is a much bigger disaster than people realize; the gas will spread, and due to the fire, we don't know what chemicals it contains. The EPA is doing more to cover up the nature of the problem than to protect people. He urges everyone to keep away from the area.
He points to the need to give the EPA the power to punish large companies enough that it hurts, so that it can take charge and protect public safety rather than a company's profits.
*East Palestine Residents Told Water Was Safe After "Sloppy" Testing Paid for by Rail Company.*
We should take the response to train accidents out of the railroads' hands, and have the NTSB do it — then tax the railroads to pay the costs.
Arundhati Roy: *Modi's model is at last revealed for what it is: violent Hindu nationalism underwritten by big business.*
Elizabeth Warren and Katie Porter accuse the big US egg producers of using the price increase caused by bird flu as a smokescreen for an additional raise in prices just because they want to gouge.
London's Science Museum has signed contracts with large oil companies (to mount exhibits) in which the museum promises not to say anything that would make those companies look bad. For instance, not to talk about their global heating.
The museum's management now says it "has decided" not to sign such clauses any more, but that doesn't tell us how many such contracts are still in force, nor prevent it from making an exception next month or next year.
It should be a crime for a museum presenting factual subjects to agree to let any other organization decide what it can or cannot say, unless those decisions are published.
Iran is trying to mount terrorist attacks against Iranian journalists in exile in the UK.
DeMentis passed a law to negate local democracy in Florida to help an exploitative local scheme succeed.
I consider this a kind of corruption.
Congress is considering a bill to prohibit the US from ever again imprisoning people because of the demographic groups they belong to.
The climate "doom loop": the cost of coping with today's damage from the early stages of climate breakdown is interfering with the steps to prevent
If it is too late to save everyone, and all the things important to save, the long term must take precedence.
Taxing the rich more might make it possible to save everyone and everything. If so, we had better push hard to do that while the possibility still exists.
New Zealand suffered widespread destruction from a cyclone's heavy rain, which destroyed many homes, roads and civic infrastructure.
It will have to rebuild very differently.
Salman Rushdie and others have condemned the changes that the publisher has recently made in Roald Dahl's books. The publisher says that the changes are so that Dahl's books "continue to be enjoyed by all children today," but I think it is more a matter of what some believe children are supposed to think.
The actual changes I have seen appear to be minor, and I don't think they ruin the books. What arouses my ire is the idea of revising the writings of the past to expunge all ideas that have been declared ++ungood. It reminds me of when students demanded removing the Arnautoff murals in George Washington High School in San Francisco.
It also reminds me of Chinese censorship.
Leaked files from the reputation-whitewashing company Eliminalia showed that it made fraudulent copyright complaints to get negative stories taken down, and used fake accounts to flood the net with fake positive stories, drowning out the criticism.
A hate movement in the UK is stirring up hatred against asylum seekers. Those under its influence respond to any inconvenience or problem by assuming asylum seekers are to blame. Often this is false, but they don't bother to check.
Anthony Mitchell died in an Alabama jail of hypothermia. His relatives accuse jail thugs of punishing him by locking him in the freezer, which killed him.
The EU has banned using lead shot to hunt birds. The lead was poisoning large numbers of other birds that were not being hunted.
Allegations that the corrupter and his relatives profited directly from corrupt dealings with Crown Prince Bone Saw.
This corruption, if proven, would justify putting them in jail. But it is not as bad as the damage caused by the political chaos and dishonesty that the corrupter unleashed on the US.
(satire) *Amazon Echo Declares It Heard Everything And It’s Taking The Kids.*
*Oxfam Calls Updated EU Tax Haven Blacklist Nothing But a "Joke List". *"Zero- and low-tax-rate countries should be automatically blacklisted," said one tax expert. "E.U. countries should not get a free pass."*
Mississippi's Republican government has created a special court for prosecution of crimes in part of the capital, Jackson, which will have no accountability to the (majority black) inhabitants of that area.
This could be a plan to institute racist "justice."
Starmer ordered the Labour Party to refuse to let Corbyn run again in the next general election. His supporters are not going to yield meekly.
Constructing the Obama Center in a black neighborhood of Chicago is supposed to benefit people there, but the actual effect (even before the center is built) is rapid gentrification — they are compelled to move away.
*Peru’s ‘racist bias’ drove lethal police response to protests, Amnesty says. [The state] permitted "excessive and lethal use of force" against indigenous groups.*
*Fox News hosts thought Trump’s election fraud claims were ‘total BS’, court filings show,* while endorsing those same lies while on the air.
The president/tyrant of Tunisia has started arresting opposition leaders and people who can influence the public.
Google gave publicity to a software project designed by Aramco employees to use Google servers to find and repair methane leaks. Did Google do good, or harm?
Repairing the leaks is good but small. Helping Aramco distract attention from its far bigger activities, which accelerate global heating, is harmful. Which one is more important?
The fact that Google specifically acted to get publicity for Aramco's token emissions reductions, which don't compensate for its emissions increases, suggests that this is misleading greenwashing, for Google as well as Aramco.
The article linked to describes other ways in which Google's misrepresents its assistance to Aramco and other planet roasters to deny that they exacerbate global heating.
Sanders proposes Robert Reich, or union leader Sara Nelson, for secretary of labor.
The Taliban have banned contraceptives in Afghanistan — perhaps some kinds and not all.
The Christian Taliban that threaten the US have similar goals, and sooner or later will try to impose similar laws in the states they control.
Tesla union busting: the company fired 30 workers in response to a union drive.
One thing the workers demand is a decrease in surveillance. I wish the customers would demand the same thing.
The US used to put asylum seekers from Venezuela in a private (unaccountable) immigration prison and tortured them with sleep deprivation and other sadisms, hoping they will break and agree to be deported.
The new system is to deport them immediately to Mexico, so they don't get a hearing. The only way they can ask for asylum in the US is to request it at a distance — probably running nonfree software — and be prepared to pay the cost of a commercial flight to the US.
Protests calling for "death to the dictator" continue in Iran despite the killing of over 500 protesters.
A DC thug whose job included monitoring suspected criminal groups such as the Proud Boys gave them information about the suspicions against them, shortly before Jan 6.
A right-wing billionaire donates to Republican candidates first of all, but as a forward line of defense he donates to plutocratist Democrats also.
He also supports fascists in Israel.
Thugs repressing protesters at Raytheon's office in Arlington, Virginia, told the protesters that Raytheon owns the sidewalk so no one can protest there.
In the meeting that they protested, all elements of the military-industrial-media complex with so thoroughly mixed up that the distinction becomes artificial.
The Chinese balloon was definitely built for spying.
*Civil Society Calls On African Union to Foster Fossil-Free Future for Continent.*
*Pesticide Use and Climate Crisis Locked in 'Vicious Cycle' Backed by Polluting Industries.*
*Peruvian loggers given 28 years in jail for murder of four indigenous leaders.*
Another Norfolk Southern train has had a derailment, and some cars were overturned.
US railroads have prioritized profit over safety; it the government has the responsibility to make them stop. Specifically, Transportation Secretary Buttigieg had better get moving.
Proper safety precautions would require giving workers time to think, rather than making them rush, and giving them sick pay so they won't be doing safety checks while not quite up to it.
Perhaps the US should establish a legal requirement for railroad workers to report certain sorts safety flaws in trains directly to the NTSB. It would be harder for railroad bosses to pressure workers to keep quiet if keeping quiet is a criminal offense. Indeed, asking staff to keep quiet should be a criminal offense too.
Republicans are introducing many state bills to restrict what teachers can teach.
*Fetterman Applauded for "Courage" of Being Open About Clinical Depression.*
Republicans in Congress want to continue the wrecker's tax cuts for the rich, which currently are supposed to last only until 2025.
Many hobbyists launch very small "pico balloons" (smaller than a nano balloon would be) which carry a GPS receiver plus a radio transmitter to say "here I am".
But only in daylight, because batteries would be too heavy to carry.
It is plausible that the balloons that the US recently shot down were pico balloons. Some of them have drifted around the Earth several times.
*Findings in Georgia Trump report could be enough to bring criminal charges.*
And it looks like the DA of Fulton County is investigating state-level charges of perjury.
*Yes, Wall Street Would Kill Your Granny for a Few Extra Bucks.*
That may be an exaggeration. I don't think a big company's CEO would bother killing one granny even for a thousand dollars. Perse would call that "small potatoes" and look for ways kill thousands of grannies for millions of dollars.
Bernie Sanders: *Now Is the Time to Defeat the Insatiable Greed of the Prescription Drug Industry.*
Democrats in the New York State senate rejected Governor Hochul's right-wing nominee to the state supreme court.
I applaud this decision, but does not erase the wrong she did by nominating such a person. If she runs for reelection, voters should demand that she come clean about this.
Biden acknowledged that the three balloons shot down most recently were not surveillance balloons and were not Chinese.
One of them seems to have been launched by an American group of hobbyists.
I recommend a system for high-altitude balloons to carry radio transmitters to identify themselves and who owns them.
*Sanders Says His New Bill to Raise Teacher Pay Could Be Fully Funded by Taxing Rich Estates.*
Biden nominated James Cavallaro for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, then withdrew the nomination after seeing how Cavallaro criticized Israel's human rights record.
That position has nothing to do with Israel, but what Professor Cavallaro said about Israel is valid.
As for Jeffries, what Cavallaro said about Jeffries seems plausible and I suppose Cavallaro spoke based on his knowledge.
It was posted before he was selected as the House Democrats' leader.
In California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Maryland, and Washington, state legislators are pushing to tax millionaires more. The campaign is looking for legislators who want to do this in other states. I am curious about their target for the highest tax bracket, which is not stated in the article.
Massachusetts voters (including me) voted for a higher tax on high incomes in the November 2022 election.
*Millions of [US] children are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage starting in April.*
And millions of US adults as well.
Extension of Medicaid was started in 2020 with bipartisan support because Covid-19 alarmed the Republicans into feeling they had to help people. Now they want to undo that as part of their War on [people in] Poverty.
The Thwaites glacier is melting from below — the water under it is hotter than freezing.
If it melts, that will raise sea level by two feet.
Oregon is considering a bill to allow victims of organized intimidation to sue the intimidators.
The idea is to discourage right-wing bullying.
(satire) *Blundering U.S. Accidentally Stabilizes Foreign Country.*
*India accuses BBC of tax evasion amid Modi documentary row.*
I won't argue that a large corporation such as the BBC is beyond suspicion, but the fact that the accusation is being made now leads me to suspect that Modi is using this to repress criticism of his regime.
Even if the accusation is true, Modi is probably using it for political motives rather than for legitimate motives.
US railroad workers call for nationalization of the US railroads,
to end the mismanagement of the few major railroad corporations.
The Department of Justice is arguing in the Supreme Court to invalidate old state laws that allow a corporation to be sued in Pennsylvania (for example) if it does business in Pennsylvania.
A few weeks ago, Biden protected the railroads from giving workers sick leave. He seems too close to railroads.
Alonzo Bagley was maimed by Louisiana thugs who arrested him in 2018, and sued them. This year a thug shot him and killed him, gratuitously. The thug is being prosecuted. I wonder why he is accused of "negligent" homicide — can firing a gun at a person be mere "negligence"?
There is no such thing as "immunity debt" for an individual. The immune system does not require "exercise" to keep functioning.
For society, there is a kind of infection backlog. Normally every baby gets infected by RSV before age two. So there is a normal rate of first infections of RSV, some fraction of which require treatment.
When babies are kept more isolated, many of them don't catch RSV at the usual age. That creates a backlog of babies who are yet to experience that infection.
When the isolation ends, basically all those babies catch it in a short time. The infection causes the same results as usual, but the number who get infected per month is higher than usual.
After a while, all those babies have had RSV and the temporary isolation has no lasting effects. At least, not due to RSV.
US citizens: call on the EPA to regulate neonic-coated seeds as pesticides.
The Corporate Weaponization of Government: it starts from the idea that corporations have the rights of people.
*Report Urges Capping US Prison Sentences at 20 Years to End Mass Incarceration.*
Long sentences are not the only cause of excessive imprisonment in the US, but it's an angle to try.
*Bank Lobbyists Hired by Congress to Oversee Banking Regulations.*
If those ex-lobbyists are honorable and loyal to their new employer, they might use their inside knowledge to do a very good job. But I think that is too much to hope for.
Planet roasters spend lots of money on advertising in antisocial media platforms, campaigning to delay decarbonization.
Musk reportedly told engineers to modify the Twitter software so that more people would actually look at his tweets.
Senator Sanders asked if it is "morally acceptable that tens of thousands of people die each year in this country because they cannot afford the medicine their doctors prescribe, while at the same time, the drug companies make billions of dollars in profits."
*Ohio residents demand answers two weeks after toxic chemical train derailment.*
(satire) *Baby Paranoid After Discovering Parents Bugged His Crib.*
If an Onion page appears blank, try disabling Javascript entirely or telling LibreJS to blacklist all scripts in the page, then right-click and select item "Reveal hidden HTML". Or use a browser such as lynx that doesn't implement Javascript and CSS.
*Flowers and trees blooming up to 3 weeks earlier than normal in the Eastern US.*
February is normally the depths of winter, but for two days it has been 60° outside my home in Boston. This is very dangerous.
More about Netanyahu's threat to Israel's democracy, and the protests that aim to resist.
(satire) *No One Has Heart To Tell Man That They Are All Figments Of His Untethered Mind.*
If an Onion page appears blank, try disabling Javascript entirely or telling LibreJS to blacklist all scripts in the page, then right-click and select item "Reveal hidden HTML". Or use a browser such as lynx that doesn't implement Javascript and CSS.
A report describes the range of repression that queer women face as human rights defendants, all around the world.
*Public-Interest Champion Gigi Sohn Faces More False Attacks as Her Long-Overdue FCC Confirmation Moves Through the Senate.*
Guterres warns the world that a billion people are threatened by sea-level rise.
Paris is pushing very hard to increase the number of apartments for residents, taking steps to convert office buildings into residences, to tax second homes, and to restrict short-term rentals of apartments.
The EPA needs to take care so that its new renewable fuel standard does not backfire and encourage use of certain fossil fuels.
The planet roasters are once again trying to encourage investment in more use of certain fuels which are only partly renewable, and doing so by exaggeration.
China is using its naval and air power as a basis for threats of skirmishes. Just recently it provoked a small skirmish with a Philippine transport ship.
For some decades, China has been building bases on islands in the South Chine Sea, which various countries claim. The Philippines replies in kind by building an artificial base on a reef. That set the scene for the skirmish.
I expect China calculates that it can attack Philippine ships with lasers. and the Philippines won't dare retaliate because China's navy is more powerful. The article does not mention that any one was permanently injured, but it creates a strategic quandary.
*Moldova president accuses Russia of plotting to oust pro-EU government.*
There are protests again in Israel as the government moves to subordinate the Supreme Court to Parliament.
*One month before Tyre Nichols arrest, activists made city council presentation over fears of violent traffic stops in Memphis.*
HSBC is serving China's repression by refusing refugees from Hong Kong access to the money they deposited in that bank.
The article claims that HSBC fabricates excuses to refuse to acknowledge that they are the owners of their accounts. HSBC says it is obeying a Chinese law. Either way, the UK (and potentially also the US) can punish it for this, since it operates in those countries.
Generations of Chinese, living all their lives under strict censorship, have not formulated a language with which to express disagreement with an official position.
The Putin forces sent thousands of Ukrainian children (at least 6000) to brainwashing camps to inculcate Russian identity and loyalty to Russia.
Some of them left with their parents' permission. Others were given no other way to leave the battlefield. Some were cut off from all further contact with their families. Some never came back.
I cannot tell whether this literally includes only children, or minors of all ages up to 18.
The NHS will pay a large sum to cure any British child of metachromatic leukodystrophy, a fatal genetic disorder, if the diagnosis is early enough for the cure to be effective.
Government intervention to eliminate antisemitism (both real and misidentified) from the Labour party has ended.
I am sure there were real antisemites in the Labour party. But since this intervention was based on the incorrect IRHC statistical classification criterion, the denunciations also included critics of Israel's occupation who were not antisemites. This will eliminate many non-racist progressives from the party. The party's unofficial policy of imposing non-progressive candidates will ensure that a Labour victory will make only an incremental difference. Sure, it won't be as bad as Tories, but how will Britain do the rest of what it needs to do? The Labour Party will never help.
Nikki Haley doesn't talk as brashly as DeMentis, but progressives point to her record on policies and say she is as radical as the corrupter.
The US has arrested more suspects in planning the murder of Haiti's President Moïse.
Moïse was effectively imposed by the US, but it is nonetheless proper to prosecute those who murdered him.
Proof that Pablo Neruda was murdered with poison.
There is no information about who poisoned him, but we can presume this was under the orders of dictator Pinochet, who overthrew the government of Chile in association with the US government.
Australia is negotiating business-supremacy treaties with the EU, India, and China. Doing so is always dangerous, since these treaties can subordinate the country's democracy to foreign businesses.
ISTR that Australia's previous government, which was right-wing, signed the Trance-Pacific Partnership which includes a noxious ISDS clause.
Australia (and every country) must cancel the treaties that make the country vulnerable to extortion by foreign businesses,
US citizens: call on the FTC to thoroughly investigate all aspects of Amazon's medical treatment business for illegal monopoly-building.
US citizens: call on Congress and enforcement agencies to block Big Pharma mergers. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Everyone: call on Elon Musk to stop silencing journalists on Twitter now.
US citizens: call on the Department of Health and Human Services to stop COVID-19 vaccine price gouging.
US citizens: Support efforts to reduce "junk fees" that make things cost more than the advertised price.
Ohio suppression officers escalated a confrontation with TV reporter Evan Lambert step by step, up to attacking him, arresting him, and placing charges against him.
Around 35 million trees died last year in California, due to global heating effects.
Great Salt Lake is drying up; in roughly 5 years it will be dry, and its ecosystem will be dead. Then dust full of heavy metals will blow from the former lake bed, making people ill.
Obama's administration adopted a regulation requiring railroads to install better brakes, The corrupter eliminated it. Transportation Secretary Buttigieg ought to reinstate that regulation, but instead is working on weakening the regulations again.
Iran was spying on an exiled dissident in Australia, and per family.
Canadian federal thugs arrested news photographer Amber Bracken for covering a protest. Now the magazine she was working for is suing the Canadian Mounted Police for that.
The RCMP has a reputation for aiding repression.
*The climate pledges of some of the world's largest companies are often highly misleading, lack transparency, and fall well short of what's necessary to avert [climate disaster].*
*16 Biggest U.S. Grocery Retailers Failed on Forced Labor and Human Rights Abuses When Sourcing Tuna.*
Sanders and some Democrats introduced a bill to fund Social Security through the rest of the 21st century, by taxing people with high incomes at the same rate as the rest of Americans.
*Hundreds of Thousands March in Madrid to "Defend the Health Service" From Privatization.*
The head of the COP28 climate conference is, embarrassingly, the head of the UAE's state oil company. He plans to increase fossil fuel production.
This goes beyond demonstrating that the UN climate conferences have been corrupted to the point where they are useless — it rubs that in our faces.
*Humanity Can No Longer Tolerate Corporations That Exist Almost Entirely to Make Money.*
Leaving the EU has been an economic disaster for the UK; there is no possible doubt.
But the biggest damage is to health , safety and human rights regulations in the UK.
Turkey is arresting the builders of buildings that collapsed due to the earthquake.
It may be true that Erdoğan is trying to distract attention from how badly he has handled emergency aid for the survivors. However, this is not a mere distraction. Turkey is earthquake-prone, so any given building has a substantial chance of suffering an earthquake sooner or later. Strict enforcements of building codes is crucial for public safety. Better late than never.
However, this isn't the first time that Erdoğan promised better enforcement of building codes, after a deadly earthquake. The real challenge will be to carry out the promise.
*Radical [right-wing] Legislation Would Eliminate All Federal Oversight of Natural Gas Exports.*
Raising the price of gas in the US is just the start of the problems that would cause. Big Oil will want to get that gas by fracking, which poisons water sources. And once Big Oil gets to build the wells and the pipelines and the export terminals, it will demand to keep running them for decades.
One difficulty with producing large amounts of hydrogen by electrolysis is that it needs to use large amounts of fresh water. That won't be possible in an arid place such as the one California is becoming.
This problem is real, but not insurmountable with abundant renewable electric generation — plus desalination plants powered by that electricity.
Six months after Pakistan's great flood, millions of people's homes and land are still underwater.
I suppose similar floods will happen again. Is there any form of engineering project that would cause floods to drain faster in the future?
Big tech companies are firing lots of people even though they are making record profits because that is the fashion for big companies.
*Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic Welcomes You.* It offers prescriptions for abortion medicines, as an act of religious devotion.
Muslim fanatics yet again murdered someone who had been accused of blasphemy.
A right-wing group that supports Israel's occupation policies has accused a Lebanese professor of "discrimination", saying that she discriminated by refusing to accept their definition of antisemitism.
If her actions fit that description, that does not make them wrong. What does or does not constitute discrimination is an objective question and we must keep it objective.
People of any group can well tell us about the forms that discrimination against that group takes, and what the experience feels like to them. The former is a matter of specific events which they saw, and the second is a subjective matter of their feelings.
However, no group in a free society can have the power to decide what does or does not constitute discrimination against that group, because in a society which prohibits discrimination in some situations, that power would be dictatorial power. The specific criterion for discrimination, where to draw the line, is a crucial moral question which affects everyone's rights. Setting line too far to either side can cause injustice; indeed, setting it too far to either side can cause injustice to you . (You are part of some groups and you interact with people in other groups.)
The positioning of that line affects everyone's rights, so everyone must have a say in it. We must abstract that definition from specific groups so as to make a fair definition that is not biased towards or against certain specific groups.
The last thing we should want is to make fossil fuel cheaper! What we ought to do is tax those fossil fuels something like $25 billion. and divide that money mainly among poor Americans.
Summarizing how to decarbonize 95% of the world's energy needs in 6 years using wind energy, water energy and solar energy.
Scientist witnesses for hire will deny scientific conclusions in the service of denialism.
US citizens: call on members of Congress to pledge never to vote to cut Social Security or Medicare under any circumstances.
US citizens: call on Congress to allow student loan debt to be discharged through bankruptcy.
It was possible to escape from student loan debt via bankruptcy until a law was passed specifically to prevent that, in the 2000s.
Prickly pear cacti are taking over the slopes of the Alps as the winter snow disappears.
*Why Defeating Hochul's Right-Wing Judicial Nominee Is Important Beyond New York.*
New York state voters, please help convince your state senators to firmly resist any right-wing nominees Hochul makes to the state supreme court.
*"A growing threat to human health": we are ill-equipped for the dangers of fungal infections.*
Goffin's cockatoos learn to use multiple tools together and to anticipate which tool or tools a given fruit requires to open it.
According to Wikipedia, they can practice self-control, keeping a treat uneaten for over a minute in order to exchange it for an even better treat. They can learn to unlock a cage by watching a human do it.
*Washington Post Runs Medicare Newsletter Sponsored By Insurance Lobby Front Group.*
Bird flu is evolving to infect various kinds of mammals,and those closer to infecting humans — even millions of humans. It could evolve to be capable of causing a pandemic like the one in 1918/19.
Meanwhile, Republicans are pushing to ensure that governments can't require anyone to take precautions against the spread of bird flu.
Not even requiring people who work raising chickens or packing chicken meat to wear masks.
*Over 30 Million in US Face "Hunger Cliff" as Food Benefit Cuts Loom.*
*ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell announced that they are scaling back plans to reduce their carbon pollution.*
They are making record profits but, being big corporations, they are ready to kill billions of people (over the long term) to make billions more dollars.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and ask per to pledge never to cut Social Security or Medicare.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
*Big Business Gave Over $36 Million to GOP 'Sedition Caucus' in 2022 Election Cycle.*
Biden's proposed "scientific integrity" policy would prohibit US government scientists from publishing any opinion about a government agency or a government policy.
Some Tories want to deport automatically any refugee that arrives in Britain in small boat, even children fleeing from danger.
Imagine this policy in the 1930s, being applied to Jewish children from Germany — those who in fact were saved by the Kindertransport.
Utah is considering a bill that would require people to show government ID to sign up for platforms where people can post things.
Americans can get abortion pills with the help AidAccess.
There is a danger that a current court case will block the use of mail order to get mifepristone. For your own sake and your friends' sake, get some now, just in case.
There are accusations that Bogus Johnson's staff conspired to lie to protect Johnson from being punished for violating Covid-19 rules limiting parties, and falsified evidence, back when he was the prime minister.
I think the UK's restrictions were too rigid and repressive. It was right to stop dangerous gatherings, but there is no reason to prosecute ordinary people for having participated in them.
However, it is intolerable for the head of the government to scheme to lie about breaking the rules himself.
Thugs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, (where I used to live) shot and killed a student, Arif Sayed Faisal. The thug department refuses to say which thugs were involved and has given out little information.
The city's thug commissioner said that there was a city policy not to release names of thugs who kill. At the next city council meeting, the mayor asked the commissioner whether that was true, and the commissioner admitted it wasn't.
Various officials admitted they wanted to delay so that public outrage would die down.
I've decided to add "officer-involved shooting" to my antiglossary.
Arguing that ChatGPT violates the privacy of everyone whose writing was used in training it.
The article seems to presume that it knows, in each use, who is using it. If that is true, that is definitely a grave violation of privacy. ChatGPT is an example of SaaSS (Service as a Software Substitute), and that is always an unjust way to make computing capabilities available.
(satire) *Mom Sick Of Reminding Lazy Teenager To Reload Family Gun After Shooting Sprees.*
If an Onion page appears blank, try disabling Javascript entirely or telling LibreJS to blacklist all scripts in the page, then right-click and select item "Reveal hidden HTML". Or use a browser such as lynx that doesn't implement Javascript and CSS.
Ohio thugs ordered a TV reporter to leave a press conference, then escalated the dispute to the point of knocking him down. Then they filed charges against him.
The Iranian drones that the Putin forces fire against Ukrainian power plants have warheads optimized for attacking power plants, not for attacking armored vehicles.
What makes it harder for black Americans to get college degrees than for whites? A survey reports it is because of discrimination and external responsibilities.
It also says that they are gouged by for-profit colleges. Many of them defraud their students.
Biden is considering a change in how the US treats migrants that cross the border with Mexico. Instead of telling each to wait months or years in Mexico for the US to consider per case, he wants to deport them permanently and immediately to Mexico without ever hearing their cases.
This is another instance of imitating Australia's cruelty.
The Wagner mercenary group is no longer finding many convicts who will agree to fight for Wagner.
Perhaps they have figured out that their odds of surviving Wagner are low.
AOA magazine tried using ChatGPT to write an article to publish. The result was an article full of errors.
A machine learning imitation system such as ChatGPT could not avoid those errors because it has no understanding of any subject. It does not know what testosterone is, or what it does in male or female bodies. It does not know the meaning of "low blood <whatever>".
Use of the term "content" for articles will not teach people to have more appreciation or respect for them. By adopting that misguided fashion, the article encourages what it criticizes.
*Human rights abuses committed by security forces and economic deprivation are among the most important drivers of recruitment to extremist groups in Africa.*
*Brazil launches operation to drive illegal miners from Yanomami lands.*
To drive them away permanently is harder than it might seem. They will keep coming back, attracted by the profits.
A Kenosha thug put his knee on a girl's neck. She was not killed, but was injured. Her family is suing.
Scientists have proposed another method of blocking a fraction of incoming sunlight from the Earth.
Like all methods of doing this, this one would depend on humans to continue running the geoengineering system; if we ever stopped, the suppressed heating would return soon.
And all such methods would fail to stop the ocean acidification that results from having more CO2 in the air. That itself would cause disaster.
The arguments that right-wing antiabortion fanatics will use with a favorable judge in seeking to ban mifepristone, and counterarguments that the FDA will use.
*A world in which your boss spies on your brainwaves? That future is near.* Employers use many systems to snoop on workers and their physical and mental state; these would essentially robotize most people.
A safety device that measures brain waves could be acceptable in some limit circumstances: if it is illegal to use that sensor's output for anything other than safety. and provided that if the safety system says you can't do your work, you should get a day of sick leave that day.
The existing "bossware" should be prohibited too.
The thugs killed forest protector Manuel Páez, but the resulting outrage has drawn many others to oppose to building the thug training center in place of the forest he was defending.
Florida schools are still allowed to teach about the Rosewood massacre, in which just about a whole town of blacks was massacred, but they are now forbidden to use the term "reparations" to describe the money that the survivors eventually received.
Activist investors have sued the directors of Shell for failing to redirect the company's operations vigorously away from fossil fuels.
It seems to me that this lawsuit is based on speculation presented as objective truth.
If the lawsuit accused Shell of putting human civilization in danger, that would be easy to demonstrate. If it accused Shell of intentionally covering this up, then provided Shell (like Exxon) privately did research decades ago which demonstrated this, that too would be easy to demonstrate.
If civilization does collapse, the investors will lose everything. But I think that is too far away to prove as a certainty by the standards of courts.
*Arsenic found in London air raises fears over use of waste wood as fuel.*
One of the big British banks will end lending for oil and gas extraction.
*No one wants masks [for the sake of wearing masks], but we still need them to keep Covid at bay.*
Pelosi is pushing Biden to nominate a plutocratist former congresscritter to be Secretary of Labor.
Republicans in Congress held a hearing about supposed collusion of Twitter with the FBI to censor the story about Hunter Biden's laptop. They did not find evidence of this, but they went on claiming they had.
They did find some evidence that the corrupter pressured Twitter to overlook his own violations of Twitter's rules.
The International Energy Agency says that renewable generation will become the biggest source of electricity by 2025.
This will indicate important progress, but it is not actually a crucial target. Our survival target is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a point lower than the rate at which they disappear from the atmosphere. That entails eliminating most fossil fuels from land, sea and air transportation, and greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, agriculture, and construction.
The half-measures, such as nuclear power, carbon capture and storage, and "blue hydrogen" are not useful for this; they are at best distractions.
Once we reach the survival target, it would be wise to go further and reduce the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Planting trees could do that, provided the trees survive and thrive. However, given plentiful renewable electricity, using that to capture carbon dioxide and convert it into durable goods could be worth doing.
Around 2/3 of white "evangelical" Christians support "Christian nationalism," which means that they wish to impose Christianity on the US and make non-Christians second-class citizens.
Over 1/4 of them state that they want an authoritarian leader "who is willing to break some rules if that’s what it takes to set things right."
I imagine the Christian Republic of America as resembling the Islamic Republic of Iran, with similar repression directed against people who reject imposed rules for clothing, similar repression and torture of protesters, and similar execution of protesters.
Georgia thugs accused Manuel Paez of shooting a state thug, and killed Terán apparently as revenge. However, it appears that that thug was shot by another thug, not by him.
*Republican-led legislature [of Missouri] rejects measure to [prohibit] minors from carrying firearms in public without adult supervision.*
Big Publishing companies want to distort copyright so that performing statistical analysis of styles infringes it. This is absurd and unjust, and as a secondary matter, it won't help authors and artists.
Please don't use the term "creators" to refer to authors and artists; it is propaganda.
Companies that make milk substitutes for babies have perfected the use of advertising to spread the idea that there is something wrong with breast milk.
(satire) *George Santos Panicking After Prospective Aide He Thought He Made Up Accuses Him of Sexual Misconduct.*
*5 Memphis [thugs] charged in deadly beating of Tyre Nichols allegedly assaulted another man just three days before, federal lawsuit says.*
Using machine learning systems to convert witness descriptions into sketches of criminals causes a risk that the sketch will look very different from what the witness saw.
*[At least two different] garden pesticides are contributing to British songbird decline, study finds.*
It is idiotic to delay prohibiting their sale.
The system for quantifying CO2 emissions from hybrid cars substantially underestimates the real world emissions of those cars.
The US used "weather balloons" to spy on China and the Soviet Union in 1956. If one wanted to argue that China is evil and vicious because it sent a balloon to spy on the US, that inconvenient fact would show the argument to be hypocrisy.
I do not think it was particularly bad of China to use balloons to snoop on a rival, or that it was particularly bad of the US to do likewise. I don't condemn China for snooping. I condemn China for its horrible repression and brainwashing of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, for its horrible repression and crushing of the 7-8 million people of Hong Kong, and its plans to conquer Taiwan so as to repress and crush the 23 million Taiwanese.
I also secondarily rebuke China for its blatant plans for economic colonialism around the world. This is no better when China does it than when the US does it.
The right-wing former government of Australia promised to do something about the problem of plastic cigarette butts, but it never even started planning what to do.
Evidently that was nothing more than dishonest PR.
Plutocratists choose policies to suit the plutocrats (rich businesses and people) they serve. When on occasion then find it necessary to make an appearance of concessions to popular demand, they try to minimize the cost to the plutocrats. Doing nothing but talk is really cheap.
The EU is considering banning use of PFAs. All of them.
Railroad unions say that the major US railroads are intentionally running safety risks to increase profits, and say that some of these chosen risks contributed to the train derailment and fire in Ohio.
They warn that worse train disasters will occur in the future. Individually, each one is an accident; collectively, the risk is intentional.
Google runs misleading ads for decoy "antiabortion advice" organizations ("crisis pregnancy centers") whose purpose is pressure and dupe low-wealth women into not getting abortions.
Ralph Nader: Put an end to treating corporations as persons in general.
Republicans in many states are proposing to prohibit drag shows or make it difficult for schools, libraries or restaurants to present them.
Note how Republican legislators use the vague and subjective word "appropriate" about drag shows (even nonsexual drag shows) because there is no way to rationally argue about a purely subjective assertion.
*Biden Is Right. No Billionaire Should Pay a Lower Tax Rate Than a School Teacher.*
Making billionaires pay as high a tax rate as working professionals is just the first step. Billionaires should pay a much higher rate.
*Biden Exposed Republican Plans to Cut Social Security. Now, he Should Release a Plan to Expand Social Security.*
Some railroad workers' unions at one of the big US railroads won a deal for a few days of paid sick leave per year.
The Department of the Interior cannot entirely cancel leasing of land for fossil fuel drilling, so it intends to postpone the leasing — perhaps indefinitely.
Planet roasters are suing, demanding that it hold leases soon.
Some Australian universities are fighting against defining "antisemitism" using the IHRA's statistical criterion.
It labels criticism of Israel's occupation policies as "antisemitism", which is clearly incorrect.
Spain has joined most of the world in covidiocy by eliminating the rule requiring passengers in public transport to wear masks.
I wonder how the Covid-19 rate will change in the coming four weeks.
Sea turtles are in danger of extinction from global heating. The sex of an egg is determined by the temperature, so heating make them all develop into females. They tend to lay eggs earlier in the year, which will help avoid that problem, but calculations say it won't do enough.
*Chinese-made security cameras to be removed from Australian government buildings.*
They are very wise to do this. You too would be wise to distrust such cameras — but not only the ones made in China!
Chances are these cameras are actually surveillance cameras: they transmit their video to some remote location (perhaps over the internet). Such cameras are always ready to spy on you for someone or other.
Seymour Hersh reported that an insider told him that the US used explosives to wreck the Nord Stream pipelines.
I did not believe that Putin did so. He got more power by shutting the pipelines and keeping the option to open them again, than by shutting them irrevocably.
This can be compared to burning the bridges or boats which your army could have used to retreat. An undamaged Nord Stream pipeline would have offered the EU a way to retreat from its boycott of Russian fossil fuel.
Biden plans to escalate the War on Drugs, specifically about fentanyl and substances "related to" fentanyl.
In addition to the usual harm to society of prohibition of any drug, this would ban a range of chemicals, whose effects (harmful or useful) have not been tested.
Fentanyl is dangerous, but a war that's on fentanyl is even more dangerous.
The main Republican presidential contenders, DeMentis and Ted Cruz, both graduated from Harvard Law School. This demonstrates that Harvard Law School fails to inculcate a respect for democracy and human rights.
Well-funded and well-organized Antiabortionists have set up a lawsuit with bogus arguments, designed so to give a specific right-wing extremist judge with a history of disregarding the legal merits of a case an opportunity to issue an injunction to ban abortion in the whole US.
(satire) *[Thug] Chief Vows Officer Accused Of Misconduct Will Receive Harshest Possible Nickname.*
US citizens: state your support for Ilhan Omar.
I want to make it clear that my support for Ilhan Omar is not because she is black, nor because she is a Muslim. For me, those are side issues. I support her because she champions progressive values and policies.
US citizens: call on the EPA to regulate the "widely recyclable" label so it can't be used to make the public believe that plastic really gets recycled.
Disney censors The Simpsons to kowtow to Emperor Xi. Other large companies censor for China.
I suppose most companies will do this rather than forego the profits from the Chinese market.If western companies were selling physical products, such as DVDs, the companies would not have to carry out the censorship. Chinese retailers would not buy the DVDs of the banned programs; the western company would not be required to participate in censorship. However, because they run a streaming dis-service, the dis-service itself is required to censor on China's behalf.
This is one additional reason to reject streaming dis-services. I condemn their injustices so strongly that I refuse to watch or listen to anything through them.
(satire) *Books Ron [DeMentis] Has Banned In Florida.*
US citizens: call on Biden to fund Social Security — by taxing the wealthy.
US citizens: call on Roku to drop the right-wing extremist One America News Network.
US citizens: call on Congress to punish Big Oil for gouging. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
North Korea has a few Youtube influencers, who appear to be specially privileged people. They enjoy things that are ordinary in the US or South Korea, but which in North Korea only specially privileged people can use.
The purpose of these channels seems to be to give people a false picture of life in North Korea.
Hollywood did something similar for the US, and maybe still does: TV shows set in people's homes show houses that are large and luxurious, that typical Americans could not afford.
Right-wing senators continue to block the nomination of Gigi Sohn to the board of the FCC, using bogus excuses, The latest bogus excuse is that she is on the board of the EFF, which opposed and opposes the internet censorship law, SESTA/FOSTA, which was designed to sabotage internet advertising by sex workers, by making platforms fear false accusations based on the hypothetical possibility that those sex workers are enslaved.
We who oppose SESTA/FOSTA believe it is unjust to attack people by provoking fear, in those people and those they cooperate with, of being suspected of something they don't actually do. We also believe that sex work in itself is not evil.
*Blueprint Offers Biden Path to Ending For-Profit Corporate Prisons.*
1/3 of US plant species and 40% of US animal species are "at risk of extinction." Many kinds of ecosystems are endangered as a whole.
Greenpeace protesters have occupied an oil drilling platform with which Shell is planning another act of ecocide.
An Insulate Britain protester was on trial for gluing himself to a highway. The judge ordered him not to inform the jury that he was on
trial for protesting to save lives, but he told them anyway.
Now he is going to be jailed for telling them that.
Lula and his environment minister, Marina Silva, are committed to
preserving all of Brazil's ecosystems, not just the Amazon forest
which is tottering on the edge of drying out.
The Putin forces seem to be accumulating tanks and soldiers for
another offensive, perhaps on the one-year anniversary of the first invasion.
Australia is heading for requiring users of dating apps to prove their legal
identities.
I understand the importance of keeping out threats
and contempt, but just as Facebook's real name
requirement is oppressive,
so will the dating app real name requirement be.
Of course, all these sites treat their users unjustly in another way:
by requiring each user to run a nonfree program. The internet is likely
to transform into a system for rigid repression. I hope we can keep some
corners of it safe from repression.
An NHS nurse writes of her decision to join the strike: the NHS is too
impoverished and weakened to provide proper medical care.
The UK plans to deport all refugees arriving in boats, with no
possibility of an exception.
One country at a time, the world is eliminating the right to go to
a country and ask for asylum.
This policy would violate the European convention on human rights, so
Tories want to cancel UK's membership in that convention.
In this way, cruelty towards boat people paves the way for cruelty towards
everyone else.
Bad management of the NHS, including overworking staff long-term, is
making the staff burn out.
This results in fewer staff actually working, and thus even more burn-out.
*Stress led to more NHS staff absences than Covid, new figures show.*
This problem could be cured, with time, by changes in government
policies: paying NHS workers more, and allowing qualified foreigners
to immigrate and fill the empty posts.
Many US pension investments are in private equity companies, which exaggerate
the worth of their investments. When those people need their pensions, they may get less than they
expect.
Many pets undergo great suffering from the way they are treated. In
addition to outright harm, many suffer boredom from being left alone
most of the day.
I think that the proposal to entirely eliminate the practice of having
pets is extreme. It is possible to have pets and treat them well;
there are pets that are happy and not bored. However, this may
require more time than you can or wish to devote to it. If that is
the case, it would be wiser for you not to have a pat.
Perhaps people should get trained in how live with a pet. Perhaps
people should have to meet certain criteria in order to have a pet.
Urging non-fascist Israelis to seek support from Palestinians to
resist Netanyahu's threat to Israel's democracy.
The history of violent fascism in the United States started
before Mussolini announced the name "fascism".
That sort of government was found in many parts of the world.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I denounce bigotry, and
normally I will not link to articles that promote it. But I make
exceptions for some articles that I consider particularly important,
such as that one.
*[Friday's] jobs report may spook the Fed (but it shouldn't).*
Leaders in the corrupter's Wisconsin campaign team privately recognized
the 2020 victory for Biden in that state, then discussed how to spread
public lies about it.
One of them is now a regional manager in the Republican National
Committee.
Everyone:
denounce Exxon
for keeping climate mayhem research
from the public.
US citizens:
call on the US Forest Service not to allow building an oil
pipeline through the Jefferson National Forest.
The proposed pipeline is the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which is opposed
for other reasons.
US citizens:
call on FIFA to recognize the Afghan women's soccer team.
Everyone:
call on Facebook not to give celebrities exemptions from
the rules.
US citizens:
call on Congress to reject the Republicans plan to replace
income tax with a national sales tax.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are
+1-202-224-3121,
+1-888-818-6641 and
+1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The effect would be a big tax increase for the non-rich and a big tax
cut for the rich. That's just what plutocratists would seek to do,
and the opposite of justice.
US citizens:
call on the FTC to ban businesses from imposing noncompete
agreements
on workers.
Brutality is part of
the culture of many US thug departments,
which is what makes the term "thug" appropriate. The question is,
what will succeed in changing that culture?
Lack of proper training
on how to choose not to kill
is one cause.
Bad training
is also responsible.
US citizens: call on the Fish and Wildlife Service to take concrete
action to reintroduce sea otters off the California and Oregon coast.
US citizens: call on Congress and state legislatures to investigate
election-winners who seem to be constitutionally excluded from office.
Thousands of Israelis are protesting for democracy, and against
Netanyahu's plans to subordinate the Supreme Court to the government.
How Republicans falsified Critical Race Theory and African American Studies
in the interest of political censorship.
(satire) *Florida Board Of Education Removes Africa From World Maps.*
Hypereager Trademark Enforcement: nasty, excessive and stupid.
US citizens: call on Congress to ban assault weapons.
That criterion for what to prohibit may not be exactly ideal, but
that's a side issue — it would be a step in the right direction.
US citizens: call on the EPA to make a strong standard for limiting
soot exposure.
In the UK, a whole generation is learning the value of unionization.
Strikes are spreading, and so are victories.
The main resistance is from the Tories, who have aimed for centuries
to keep wages down and workers poor.
The US is seeing something similar, but not so many victories, as a big
company can stall concessions for years.
Robert Reich: *Friday's Surprisingly Positive Jobs Report Does Not
Mean Fed Should Keep Raising Rates.*
Proposing to legislate that corporations' directors have a duty "not
to severely harm the public interest."
The right-wing, 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a federal
law
barring people with domestic violence restraining orders from
owning firearms.
That court is right-wing because the preponderance of Republican
senators from the states in that circuit have blocked the appointment
of any new judges there.
That makes the 5th circuit ideal for Republicans to get the results
they seek.
The shooting of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán was part of an
US crackdown
on environmental defenders,
which includes charging them with
"terrorism" for nonviolent protest.
Bogus Johnson promised to build 40 new hospitals, to win the 2019 election.
Now it's almost time for another election, and only 10 of them have approved
construction plans.
Promise them anything, but give them tax cuts for the rich.
At 1.5°C of global heating, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
could start melting and not stop until it is entirely gone. That would lead to 3 or 4 meters of sea level rise.
*Once Again, DNC Panel Blocks Vote on Dark Money Ban in Democratic
Primaries.*
*Tackle "Abuse of Water" by Big Ag and Big Oil,
Advocates Say Amid Colorado River Fight*
I think that "abuse" is the wrong word for this.
It should be "misuse". But it is a very big misuse.
Fracking misuses enormous amounts of water.
So does growing feed for cattle.
*ACLU Sues CIA, DOJ, and NSA for Records About Warrantless Spying on
Americans.*
Dubya's solicitor-general, who argued in the Supreme Court in favor of
trying the prisoners in Guantánamo in "military commissions" (kangaroo
courts), now says that that was a terrible mistake. The US should
have brought them to a real US court for trial.
He also says it was
self-defeating to ask for the death penalty for any of them, and that
the US should offer them plea deals now.
I think that after the many years in prison and torture they have
suffered, the US should offer them a plea deal for time already
served, and let them go.
Five years ago, the wrecker's officials separated thousands of migrant
children from their parents. Despite persistent efforts, 1000 of them
still not been reunited with those parents, because the wrecker's
officials preserved no usable information about who those parents were
and how to find them.
An Iraqi father dishonored himself by murdering his daughter for
acting as if she had rights of her own.
His country dishonored itself by not taking this murder as seriously
as other murders.
*The Tories now face a choice: lose office with honour or burn
everything in sight.*
I partly disagree with that statement. After 13 years of lies,
bullshit, broken promises and voter suppression, all designed to help
the rich and drive the poor into hunger, cold and sickness, we must
not recognize the Tories as possessing any sort of honor merely for
putting a limit on their mayhem at a point before the bitter end.
Some "crisis pregnancy centers" go beyond misleading pregnant women so
they won't get abortions — they also disregard proper medical
procedures to avoid spreading diseases from one client to the next.
This was reported by a licensed nurse who volunteered to help in one.
Biden has asked to negotiate with the Republican
terrorists that use the debt ceiling as a hostage.
Negotiating with hostage takers plays into their hands
and leads to ignominious surrender.
It is probably technically possible to avoid global heating over
1.5°C, but society seems incapable of mobilizing to overcome the
obstruction.
Early in the 20th century, Germany colonized Namibia and carried out genocide
against two tribes that resisted. Now they demand reparations,
not to the Namibian government but to the people of those two tribes.
Interviews with Palestinians in Ramallah on the topic of Blinken's visit
(to Israel, and to Palestine on the side).
*Carbon capture project [in Texas] is ‘Band-Aid’ to greenwash $10bn
LNG plant, locals say.*
Many climate defenders and scientists say that too; I am glad the word
is spreading.
*Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s single largest investor,
has warned company directors it will vote against their re-election
to the board if they don’t
up their game on tackling the climate
crisis, human rights abuses and boardroom diversity.
*Republicans have a serious antisemitism
problem. It isn't Ilhan Omar.*
A single state of the US
cannot effectively regulate what sorts of
guns
are available. It is easy to bring a gun from another state.
A Brazilian senator, formerly a supporter of Bolsonaro, said that the
two were present in a conversation where another elected official,
also a supporter,
proposed ways to spread doubt on the election's
validity.
Employees at some
REI stores have overcome union-busting
to unionize.
REI is a cooperative, but it is a custom-owned cooperative,
not a worker-owned cooperative. So it can easily mistreat workers.
Democratic Connecticut legislators propose to prohibit the pseudo-word
"Latinx" in state publications, saying that most Latins find it offensive.
I too find it offensive — because it is an excrescence on the English
language and/or the Spanish language. It does not fit the
pronunciation rules of either language. Basically, the word "Latinx"
stinx.
In English, let's use the noun "Latin" (plural, "Latins"). In
Spanish, I recommend "latini", which uses "-I" as the gender-neutral
suffix. The suffix "-i" is better
because it causes fewer ambiguities than "-e". For instance, "-i"
avoids creating a painful ambiguity for "le".
*Former Russian soldier reveals he witnessed torture of Ukrainian prisoners of
war.*
*Bolsonaro attended meeting about plot to keep him in power, senator says/*
The US has freed a "high-value" prisoner from Guantanamo prison,
someone who was tortured by the CIA. He plead guilty to crimes and got
a 10-year sentence that has now ended, and he has been released to
Belize.
This overcome one obstacle that stood in the way of closing the prison,
but it still won't be easy.
Memphis thugs took training from Israeli thugs,
who are likely to have taught how to apply the practices they apply
to Palestinians.
*Pentagon says it is monitoring Chinese spy balloon spotted flying
over US.*
Senator Manchin, together with Republicans, intend to try once again
to undermine the environmental review now required for large and
potentially dangerous industrial projects.
*British Columbia now allows possession of 2.5g of illegal drugs in
measure to mitigate opioid crisis.*
*Australia to allow prescription of
MDMA and psilocybin for
treatment-resistant mental illnesses.*
The history of the "traffic stop" in the US, and how it inevitably
became a vehicle for racism and violence.
The article recommends that traffic enforcement be done by unarmed
personnel.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I denounce bigotry, and
normally I will not link to articles that promote it. But I make
exceptions for some articles that I consider particularly important.
Most often they give important information about racism or the fight
against racism.
Calling for the UK to ban work discrimination against workers for
having attended state schools ("public schools", as we call them in the US).
The video of thugs attacking Tyre Nichols shows that their reports
misrepresented the truth.
It is not at all unusual for official thugs to cover up the truth of
their crimes, even going so far as to lie on the witness stand.
Indian journalist Siddique Kappan was preparing to cover the case of a Dalit
who was gang-raped and died, when the officials of Uttar Pradesh arrested him,
accused him of one unrelated crime after another (including "terrorism"),
and tortured him repeatedly.
He was released on bail after two years, but the charges are still pending.
In India, this practice is spelled "BJP".
Greenpeace activists protested outside Shell's headquarters, demanding
that the company take responsibility for the damage that fossil-fueled
global heating is causing.
Shell's profits last year were twice the estimated cost to repair
the damage caused by the enormous flood in Pakistan,
which was caused by global heating.
The fashion of focusing on which people are suffering how much just
now
from global heating is a distraction. Every region is likely to
face enormous suffering within a few decades. We need unite to put
an end to global heating. Then, when things are stable and emissions
are much reduced, we can worry about ending poverty world-wide.
*Battle Over Budget a Great Moment [for Biden] to Envision a Better,
More Equally Prosperous Nation.*
Republican-dominated states are threatening to
sue pharmacy chains
claiming that mailing abortion drugs to people in those states would be a crime
under those states' laws. This is an attempt
to intimidate them into never trying to do so.
The US government claims that those threats are invalid, and
eventually a court will decide. But the Republicans can hope by this
threat to cause lasting life difficulties for tens of thousands of
women, even if they later lose the lawsuit.
Chechen militia battalions, composed of volunteers, fight for Ukraine,
hoping to bring about indirectly the removal of Putin's control over
Chechnya.
The US "remain in Mexico"
policy has brought migrants to a mass grave
in Tapachula,
at the southern end of Mexico,
one of the cities where Mexico forces them to go and stay.
The cemetery workers don't know how many bodies are buried there
without identification.
Scientists were reluctant to try albicidin as a medical antibiotic
because they could not predict what bad side effects it might have.
That problem somehow did not prevent the discovery, testing and
adoption of penicillin. Given the urgent need for new antibiotics,
perhaps medicine has become hypercautious.
If they test albicidin with due care but not hypercaution, they can
find out whether it safe for humans, then use it for treatment if it
is safe. They might find a great new antibiotic quickly, or they
might find it is unusable. This is worth a try, isn't it?
I suspect something nastier underlies the hypercaution: perhaps pharma
companies are not interested in using albicidin because they cannot
patent it. If they develop "better" versions, they will patent those
and make a lot more money, at a byproduct making them too expensive in
most of the world. I suppose they don't want those expensive products
to have to compete with generic albicidin.
More diversity is no substitute for more equality:
if the rich become more diverse, and the poor become more diverse,
that doesn't help the poor.
Tories promised a few years ago to mostly eliminate the use of neonicotinoids,
but each year they declare an exception.
It's typical Tory, to adopt a plan to fix a major problem and then not
really do it.
*Sunak’s warm words on nature sound good, but can they
save our last [UK]
nightingales and swifts?*
Tories often talk about doing something that will help the non-rich,
but they often cancel the plans before carrying them out. Just
recently they are planning to cancel the commitment to compensate the
people who immigrated lawfully from the Caribbean as children but were
threatened recently with deportation
because they did not have the
documents to prove what happened decades ago.
Tories also promised to restore building codes that would have
prevented a deadly fire, but now they talk about deregulation.
The first step against "Medicare Advantage" is a bill to change its
name
so it won't be called "Medicare".
Alas,
this bill won't stop the privatization of Medicare
itself,
started by the wrecker and perversely continued by Biden.
Australian pubs are starting to use facial recognition in areas with
gambling machines, to keep people out who have requested
not to be
allowed to gamble.
The basic idea sounds harmless in principle. It would seem that if
you have not added yourself to the list of people to exclude, this
system won't affect you. But is that really true?
I wonder who else will have access to the face scans of people who
visit the club? Will those scans go into a system connected to the
internet?
Will state agencies be able to add faces to the list of people to
exclude? Will state agencies be able to collect the face scans of
everyone that enters?
Extra funds for thug departments to "crack down on crime" are often
used to create special units of thugs. The recently-disbanded
Scorpion group in Memphis was an example.
This article describes some aspects of these groups that tend to make
them
arm the public.
They don't all murder people, but they also have a tendency to be
sent to areas inhabited by disprivileged demographic groups and have
the effect of causing suffering there.
*Bernie Sanders to DNC: Ban Super PAC Money in
Democratic Primary Races.*
*Jane Roberts Becomes the Latest [Supreme Court] Spouse to Raise Questions
about Potential
Conflicts of Interest.*
The US government approved a somewhat reduced version of the "Willow
project" for oil drilling in
northern Alaska.
Reducing the size of the project may reduce the danger it adds, but surely
it will still increase the danger of climate breakdown. It appears that
the Interior department, and Biden, do not appreciate how much danger we
are all in.
A study based on neural network modeling suggests that even with
substantial emissions cuts we might have 2°C of global
heating in 50
years.
*Where the study departs from many current projections is in its estimates of when the world will cross the 2°C threshold.*
Considering the magnitude of the disaster we are skirting, it behooves
us to be conservative — in the normal sense of the word, not the
misleading synonym for "right wing". We need to cut more, and faster,
to reduce the risk of climate breakdown.
(satire) *Ticketmaster To Require Purchase Of Round-Trip Concert
Tickets For
Exiting Venue After Show.*
When the London thug department infiltrated many left-wing political groups.
the high officers who supervised that group never investigated whether
whether that surveillance was justified,
or whether it was lawful.
(satire) *CEOs Explain How
They Will Use ChatGPT.*
*Canada votes to take in 10,000 Uyghur refugees amid Chinese pressure to
force
their return.*
Shell's oil drilling in the Niger delta in Nigeria has polluted the water
with oil. People get sick, and the fish they used to eat have all died.
Now the people who live there are
suing Shell in the UK.
*Colombia to pay reparations for role in extermination of
left wing party.*
The party was formed by former guerrillas who made a peace agreement with
the government. Then the government organized killing them.
A few Democrats tried to convince the Democratic Party in 2003 to take a stand
against
attacking Iraq.
Russia is refusing to comply with requirements of the New Start treaty
that
limits nuclear missiles.
*Long-term exposure to dirtier air can increase your risk of
depression or anxiety,
study finds.*
*Shell’s actual spending on renewables is
fraction of what it claims,*
according to Global Witness. This is an instance of greenwashing.
Suspects in the murder of Jovenel Moïse, the imposed president of Haiti,
were sent to the US for trial.
Can anyone explain to me how it is that the US has jurisdiction
over a murder in Haiti?
Despite the UK's new requirement for foreign entities that own UK
property to state who the real owners are, loopholes allow some of
those owners to continue to hide their identity.
The German government, including the Green Party, chose the side of
building a new coal mine. It needed thousands of uniformed thugs
to defeat the 35,000 protesters who tried to block the conversion
of a village into a coal mine.
Destroying a town for public purposes is sometimes legitimate. (All
the inhabitants of that town were compensated and given time to move.)
Four towns were inundated to make the Quabbin reservoir which brings
rain water to the Boston metro area. But building additional fossil
fuel facilities steers our future towards climate breakdown.
Parents in a small town in Connecticut let their children, ages 7 and
9, walk a mile to a store. Someone freaked out and called the thug
department. The parents now face criminal charges.
Memphis published the names of the black thugs that helped to kill
Tyre Nichols, but concealed until this week the name of the white thug
who was involved, and what role he played.
This could represent bigotry.
The report seem also seems to try to cover up some aspects of the
thugs' violence.
Speaking of bigotry, the article displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) Normally I do not link to
articles that do this, but I make exceptions for some articles that I
consider particularly important, such as the first one.
It should not be surprising that blacks can absorb from white society
the widespread ideas of bigotry against blacks.
Ideas for what could make for a real change in the violence of thugs
against blacks.
Supposedly UK voters can cope with the new voter-ID law by applying
for special government identification, but only 0.5% of the people who
would need one in order to vote have applied.
Thugs in Huntington Park, California, ran towards Anthony Lowe with
guns drawn. He dropped off his wheelchair and tried to pull his body
away from them, but he could not move very fast that way; then they
shot him dead.
It appears they did not run their body cameras. That in itself
is suspect. I've proposed automatic systems that will activate
body cameras at the sound of a shot (or a taser) and will save
the previous five minutes of video as well as subsequent video.
*"Suspicious death" of Rwandan journalist prompts calls for investigation.*
US citizens: call on Congress to stop corporate profiteering off of
COVID vaccines, by guaranteeing free access to all Americans.
The Burmese military rulers repeatedly bomb villages of civilians.
*[Burma] junta hit by western sanctions as "silent strikes" mark coup
anniversary.*
*US dairy policies drive small farms to 'get big or get out' as
monopolies get rich.*
Industrial concentration is the cause of a range of injustices and suffering.
We need policies to break up those monopolies; any policy which does the opposite simply must be changed.
A twisty maze of regulations and restrictions — in the US, in Mexico,
and in other countries — make it very difficult for anyone to
exercise the right to request asylum in the US, even to follow the
long and slow procedure the US imposes for doing so.
The "Title 42" system of making asylum-requester stay in Mexico runs
into a problem since Mexico won't let them stay there.
An additional aspect of oppression in this system is the US requirement
to use a snoop-phone app, "CBP One". Those programs are nonfree and
typically malware.
So are the operating systems of the snoop-phones themselves.
For governments to make them the only way to communicate with a
government agency for some purpose is in itself unjust. So, for the
same reason, are "web apps" that send substantial Javascript programs
that users have to run in their own computers. Knowing the US
government, I expect it abuses that power grossly when it gets the
chance.
I'm sure most of the people compelled to run "CBP One" hardly care
about that injustice, given the painfulness of their situations in
general. But unlike those. this one tends to spread to non-refugees
— to everyone.
Olympic games tend to spread permanent increases in surveillance and
repression wherever they go. The next victim will be Paris.
I've urged the citizens of cities in more-or-less-free countries to
defeat those cities' Olympic bids. In addition to repression
and surveillance,
they tend to crush poor people
and especially homeless people,
and transfer a lot of public money to big companies.
Robert Reich: the growing national debt is mainly due letting the rich
pay too little tax.
British libel law still lends itself to use by rich people to suppress
truthful journalism. The fact that Russian oligarchs who are personally
under UK sanctions are doing so is especially embarrassing, but it is just as bad when British plutocrats do it.
The Tories are planning to make this even worse. They are working to
change thousands of laws all at once — laws imposed by the EU to
protect human rights and regulations to protect people's health.
This includes changes that would make libel suits an even easier
way for rich people to bury the truth.
The EPA rejected the Pebble Mine and thus protected Bristol Bay, Alaska.
A former member of the US military-industrial complex
calls for help in breaking it up.
*Iranian couple filmed dancing in Tehran are jailed for 10 years.*
The term "gender-affirming surgery" has a serious flaw as a way of
defining a category of surgical operations: it is subjective, not
objective. Specifically, it is stated in terms of what someone
(presumably the patient) thinks about the operation, not in terms of
what the operation concretely does.
One patient might say, "I see this operation as affirming my gender,
so I want to have it." Another patient might say, of the same
operation, "This would go against gender, so I don't want it."
We need an objective way to define and refer to this class of
operations, one independent of whether a given patient wants such an
operation or not.
Drones were used to attack some sort of building or base in Iran.
US officials said that Israel carried out the attack.
We don't know what that target is, or what it does, or what purpose it
serves. However, this is likely to provoke war with Iran.
Replacing concrete and steel in construction with sophisticated spiral
plywood can reduce CO2 emissions by 40%, because the carbon in the wood
never gets converted to CO2.
It can even be fireproof in temperatures that would melt steel.
Agencies that send workers to visit demented people at home
in the UK have been systematically skimping.
The term "agency" might suggest that this is a state agency, but I
suspect that it refers in this case to a profit making business.
Can anyone tell me for a fact whether that is so?
If this is a business, I suspect it is making money hand over fist,
paying its workers a pittance and charging patients' families for work
not done. But I find it hard to believe that the workers initiated
the practice and hide the fraud from their employer. I can't help
suspecting that the business taught its workers to engage in fraud,
and that the state knows about it but looks the other way.
Some US universities have set up vending machines to sell emergency
contraception.
(satire) *ChatGPT Forced To Take Bar Exam Even Though
Dream Was To Be AI Art Bot.*
If an Onion page appears blank, try disabling Javascript entirely or
telling LibreJS to blacklist all scripts in the page, then
right-click and select item "Reveal hidden HTML". Or use a browser
such as lynx that doesn't implement Javascript and CSS.
The US has a leaning towards criminalizing anything irregular.
A 29-year-old woman faces criminal charges for claiming to be a teenager
so as to enroll in a public school, and presenting a false birth certificate
to make that possible.
I can't understand this response — wouldn't it be sufficient to
dis-enroll her? None of the articles I have seen makes any attempt to
justify or explain the harshness. Perhaps the reason is taboo.
*US utilities shut off power to millions amid record corporate profits.*
It's the government's responsibility to prevent such harm. There are
various ways to do it. One way would be to increase the taxes those
utilities (and other corporations) actually pay, and give some of that
money to poor Americans.
Queensland proposes to legalize stop-and-search with no specific suspicion.
In the US and in the UK, this is an invitation to racial profiling.
The next rally for Julian Assange will be at the Park Street Station
on Feb 11th from 11:30 to 12:30.
*It is cheaper [in the US] to build solar panels or cluster of wind
turbines and connect them to the grid than to keep operating coal
plants.*
*Iranian protesters sentenced to death were tortured, says Amnesty report.*
In the 1980s, Iran's new (at that time) Islamic Republic
used to treat trials as a pointless inconvenience. That tendency
is still present.
Global heating threatens the production of jamón ibérico.
The oak forests are producing fewer of the acorns that the pigs eat.
Eventually that forest may disappear, and its ecosystem.
Iraq's ancient marshlands, where the Tigris and Euphrates enter the
Persian Gulf, are drying out and dying due to global heating with help from other causes.
US citizens: call on the Justice Department to challenge all state
abortion bans that violate federal law.
US citizens: call on Congress to keep Ilhan Omar on the House Foreign
Affairs Committee.
Years of Tory attacks against the NHS have made it very difficult for
doctors to work there. Around 40% are planning to quit within the
next 5 years.
Hong Kong exiles in the UK called on the Tories not to follow China's example
by criminalizing peaceful protest.
Two Florida thugs grabbed a homeless man (whom they may have recognized),
handcuffed him, took him to an isolated place, and beat him unconscious.
There is no indication of a plausible motive for this attack.
The thugs have been arrested. Hooray!
Rep. Santos's fund-raising reports mention fund-raising supporters who
don't seem to exist, nor do their addresses exist.
There seems to be a criminal investigation into this.
The Republican Party has gone out of its way to demonstrate
that it will tolerate any sort of crimes among its elected officials
and supporters. But it may be powerless to stop Santos from bring convicted and imprisoned.
Tunisians protested the president's diminution of the power of the voters
by boycotting recent parliamentary elections.
Stiglitz: economic developments confirm that central banks have
handled inflation wrong, based on a misguided model of what was
causing it. The increases in interest rates were unnecessary
treatment for the wrong disease.
*Georgia is seeking to define "Cop City" protests as terrorism, experts say.*
In fact, these protests are generally peaceful.
Breaking windows as a protest is not peaceful, but it is not terrorism
either. To stretch the definition of "terrorism"
is the everpresent
danger from officials that incline towards repression, as US officials
often do.
Officials in other countries do it too.
US citizens: call for a ban on the use of facial recognition and other
biometric technology in places of public accommodation.
The US government suffers, in general, from too much secrecy, plus a
double standard for enforcement of secrecy rules (important officials
are treated with leniency).
The problem of oversecrecy was recognized decades ago, but it got much
worse through overreaction to the Sep 2001 attacks. In general, the US
reaction to those attacks has been quite harmful (most notably,
attacking Iraq based on lies).
Whether to mark something as secret depends on a judgment call by some
official. The structure of this tends to push officials towards
oversecrecy. If they don't mark something secret, and later on it
appears that publishing it may have caused some bad consequences,
people will blame them. If they do mark something secret, and later
on it appears that concealing it caused some bad consequences, no one
will blame them. For their career safety, they mark it secret by
default. Systematically, the result is oversecrecy.
US citizens: call on Congress to ban members of Congress from buying
and selling individual stocks.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are
+1-202-224-3121,
+1-888-818-6641 and
+1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
Ukraine has set up a hotline for Putin forces soldiers to call to
discuss how to arrange to surrender.
Plutocratist "moderate" Democrats are joining with Republicans (also
plutocratist) to defeat progressive Democrats in Democratic primaries.
*Biden Outpaces [the wrecker] on Oil and
Gas [drilling] Permits.*
Starmer proposes to subcontract NHS medicine to private clinics.
That is a recipe for a brain drain from NHS clinics to private clinics.
Union Pacific spending on stock buybacks
Union Pacific [railroad] spent more on stock buybacks than [on] workers.*
Two sides of corpse fetishism: a London thug was fired for taking photos
of two corpses.
I don't understand why he wanted the photos, nor do I understand why
the department did not want him to have them.
In Australia's Guantanamo, the security is not as tight as in the
American Guantanamo; some prisoners succeed in escape via suicide.
The Memphis thug department has disbanded the "scorpion" unit, some
of whose members killed Tyre Nichols.
For a thug department to give any group of thugs a name which refers to
a venomous and deadly animal seems misguided.
*The Assange prosecution poses a fundamental threat to the freedom of speech and a free press.*
Associated Press Stylebook endorsed the pressure campaign to eliminate
all nouns that designate subsets of humanity, citing a peculiar excuse
— the need for an article before those nouns. It brought ridicule on
itself.
However, I don't think they have retreated from this pressure campaign.
Whether you say "the French", or "French people", they are not all
alike. They differ from each other. That is no justification for the
pressure campaign.
Big Oil wants to build a 2000-mile pipeline to transport CO2 to a place where
it can be buried. The landowners whose land they would need to cross are
fighting to block it.
I oppose this pipeline because carbon storage is unproved and
switching to renewable generation is surely cheaper and better for
decarbonization. However, I am disappointed that the authors are so
obsessed with race that they perceive a need to apologize for
supporting, this time, a group of environmental defenders who happen
to be white.
The main causes of murders carried out by uniformed thugs is the
general violent attitude of most US thug departments.
That violent attitude is directed mainly at blacks, so thugs (even
black thugs) are more likely to kill blacks than whites. This is
ironic but it's the natural consequence of the violent approach that
thugs learn to consider normal.
US citizens:
call on Congress to ban members of Congress from buying
and selling individual stocks.
The wrecker
secretly gave a million dollars for the bogus private "audit"
of Arizona's votes.
Some US and European
officials are talking about aiming for regime
change in Russia,
even setting the goal of splintering Russia into
several countries. This is dangerous.
In addition, it will tend to prolong the war even beyond recovering
Ukraine's territory.
I said in March that we should assure Putin that driving him out
of power in Russia is not one of the west's aims.
to give him the chance to decide to end the war with no victory.
*[Rich] Tory donors own UK properties via more than 150 offshore firms.*
Those companies' purpose was to hide the ownership of those properties.
It is being revealed now because the UK has required
the true owners
to identify themselves.
Proposing a "Radio Free Russia"
for transmitting the work of exiled
Russian journalists to Russia.
*In abandoning a commitment to create the post of a migrants’
commissioner to identify problems with the immigration system as
well as a pledge to increase the powers of the independent chief
inspector of borders and immigration, [Minister] Braverman is
making it very clear that
the government does not care about
immigrants
— past, present, or future.*
Antinuclear activists warn that the release of tritium-containing
water from the retired Indian Point nuclear reactors, and
demolition of their structure, will release radioactive materials
and they may be damaging.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/indian-point-wastewater
I can't say that is impossible, but the arguments presented in this
article by Caldecott and other opponents are based on an error.
It is true that no amount of radiation exposure is so small as to be
absolutely harmless. It does not follow that any increment in
radiation or radioactive material, not matter how small, is cause for
great alarm. Radiation is everywhere, and radionuclides are
everywhere. Adding a tiny fraction of the amount already present has
an effect which is nonzero, but the resulting increment in danger may
be so small as to be insignificant as regards public health.
Will the tritium releases of the operations now planned cause a
significant increment in danger? I don't know the answer; I don't
know how to calculate it. But that is the proper basis for judging
these issues.
The release of tritiated water is one issue, and dust from the
demolition is another issue. It could be that one is dangerous and
the other is not. Each one ought to be studied and calculated.
A Russian official pointed out that
depleted uranium munitions,
and the depleted uranium armor
in newer model Abrams tanks,
will cause lasting danger in Ukraine.
I can't estimate whether depleted uranium munitions will injure as
many Ukrainians as the Putin forces' weapons. But comparing the two
is irrelevant, because they are independent problems.
I expect that the US government will use the fact that this comes from
hypocritical Putin to pretend that the danger is just one of Putin's
lies. He can't believe anything on his say-so lie, but this time what
he said was accurate.
Putin does not care about Ukrainian lives. He might care about
hypothetical Russians who might someday live on conquered Ukrainian
territory. But what Putin thinks is a side issue. If future
Ukrainian lives matter to us, we should push for the US to protect
Ukraine from depleted uranium, regardless of what Putin thinks.
I saw a headline today that the US plans to give Ukraine the new
Abrams tanks with depleted uranium in the armor.
Hate-spreading
right-wing fantasists are driving women out of New
Zealand politics
through intimidation.
Ralph Nader challenges Bernie Sanders to
move beyond denouncing Big Pharma
and take some action
independently of them.
That's a bit unfair, because taking action usually requires passing laws,
and the plutocratists in the Senate are on Big Pharma's side, so they
will block that.
Arguments for the Luddite cause.
A world in which software is free will be a big step forward for people's
control over the digital technology we use.
The University of Melbourne has decided to adopt the IHRA's biased "definition"
of antisemitism
as part of academic rules intended to prohibit antisemitism.
This tends to be used to prohibit criticism of Israel's treatment of Arabs.
The IHRA criterion was designed for statistical studies
— to look at
a large corpus of statements and come up with figures such as the
frequency of antisemitism is in that corpus.
For that purpose, infrequent
misclassification of edge cases is tolerable — it won't make the
figures useless as long as those edge cases are rare in comparison to
to real antisemitism. However, in a rule to be imposed on individuals
and organizations, each misclassification is an injustice.
If the University or Melbourne goes ahead to develop criteria for
recognizing prejudice against Muslims,
I hope it will not refer to
this prejudice as a "phobia". That is a fundamental conceptual error.
*Africa has become ‘less safe, secure and democratic’ in past decade,
report finds.*
George Monbiot: *We are all playing Covid roulette.… You could
see Covid-19 as an empathy test.
Who was prepared to suffer disruption
and inconvenience for the sake of others
[survival and health], and
who was not?*
The question of
how to moderate the corrupter's own postings
on
specific platforms are a side issue of bigger and more important
decisions about the policy for regulating platforms.
Russia has
criminalized any kind of cooperation with the reporters of
the news site
Meduza — including giving an interview.
*Human activity and drought
"degrading
more than a third of Amazon rainforest."*
Drought in Amazonia is
largely caused by cutting down forests
in Amazonia and to the east of there
(along the Atlantic).
US residents:
call on the EPA to ban Roundup.
If you have disabled the page's JavaScript, you may get a blank
response after signing. That does not mean anything is wrong; your
signature has probably been sent in properly. The blank screen has
text that is rendered invisible by CSS; if your browser gives you a
way to disable the CSS in the page (as Icecat does), that should make
the text appear.
US citizens:
call on Biden to push back on the Israeli government's
antidemocratic measures.
US citizens:
call on Congress to pass the Stop SCAM PACs Act.
US citizens:
call on Facebook and Twitter to fact-check
disinformation from the wrecker
if they allow him to post at all.
Pfizer recently raised the prices of 100 drugs in the US.
To wipe the
bad taste of this from Americans' minds, its PR operation publicizes
that it will provide the drug at lower price to some patients in poor
countries,
and that it is still limiting world-wide production.
A climate defender urged Australian local councils to
cut their own
emissions, rather than spend millions on overseas carbon offsets.*
Aside from a few peculiar exceptions, Australia's government seems to
be very serious about reducing emissions. I hope it adopts a strict
policy to limit the sale and purchase of carbon offsets, wildlife offsets,
and any other sort of offset.
*Rohingya and Myanmar
coup survivors launch legal complaint in Germany
against junta.* Their accusations include war crimes, crimes against
humanity, and genocide
(against the Rohingya, I presume).
I can imagine a verdict of guilty, but in practice, what could the court
do to a foreign government? There are already sanctions against it,
but since the Burmese state has China's backing, I don't think more
western sanctions would make much difference.
The UK's conditional tax on overly sweetened drinks brings about a
significant (though not revolutionary) reduction of obesity in girls.
All the Memphis thugs involved in killing Tyre Nichols have been charged
with second-degree murder.
Biden has proposed a collection of measures intended to help people
who rent their homes and have trouble affording the expense.
I am not able to evaluate it, but I suspect (as do others) that it is
not enough to solve the problem. I think we need to build a lot more
housing, dense enough to make mass transit efficient. That will take
years, so it is better if we get started now and push it hard.
Reportedly some big corporations that have bought up millions of
rental units are content with the proposal — which suggests
it is insufficient.
Sadiiq Long, US citizen is harassed frequently by local thugs because
they see, when they check his license plate, that he is on the US
"terrorist watch list." The US government won't tell him why, and
offers no way to get taken off the list, so he is suing the local
thug department for harassing him based on that listing.
The harassment varies and is sometimes very frightening; he could
easily envision being shot next time.
The death of most indigenous Americans, due to the importation of
European germs, cause their farm fields to grow trees. The result
was significant global cooling starting in the late 1500s.
The cooling was reversed by population growth some two centuries later.
Along with the Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, the US
may supply Ukraine with shells made from toxic depleted uranium.
When one of those shells explodes, it spreads dust of depleted
uranium, which when inhaled or swallowed by humans leads to cancer,
birth defects, and other severe medical problems.
Chevron, a Big Oil company, is spending $75 billion on stock buybacks.
This demonstrates that Chevron has no valid use for all those profits,
so we should increase the taxes the company pays and spend the funds on
something useful.
However, I do not believe we should deduce that gasoline should have a
lower price. If we tax Chevron that much more, we can instead use
those funds to aid poor people. The poor people who need to drive
will benefit just the same — but those poor people who can avoid
driving will benefit even more.
A woman in Idaho started to miscarry, but the ban on abortion
prohibited physicians from treating her until her problem put her at
risk of death.
We should not focus too much on these harmful and unjust side effects
of the ban, because they could become a distraction from the harmful
and unjust goal of the ban: prohibiting abortion itself.
Reporters without Borders warns Americans of the threat to freedom of
the press
posed by right-wing authoritarians, in particular the corrupter.
Everyone: call on legislatures at all levels to ban the use of
facial recognition and other biometric technology in places of public
accommodation.
A new California law that requires a decent minimum wage for fast food
workers has fast-food chains protesting, "We will go broke!"
Chipotle, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, McDonald's, In-N-Out Burger and
(effectively) KFC gave a million dollar each to advance an initiative
petition to repeal the law.
Treat that "fast food" as it deserves — by fasting from it!
US pharmaceutical companies have spent more on stock buybacks and
dividends than drug research and development over the past decade.
Hun Sen, "president" of Cambodia, regularly puts Cambodians on trial for
posting words that insult him.
Cambodia isn't the only country that fails to recognize that freedom
of speech includes the freedom to insult people — even to insult the
highest officials. France has prosecuted people for insulting
President Sarkozy — for instance, one defendant had said "Sarkozy, I
see you" when the topic was an injustice. Some of these defendants
were acquitted for various reasons, but the fact that the prosecution
were not dismissed outright in the name of freedom of speech shows that
respect for freedom of speech is lacking there.
I used to refer to Sarkozy as "Sarcômë", which means "cancer".
Fortunately for me, I was never prosecuted.
The term "parental rights" is typically used in US discourse to justify
denying children, and adolescents too, thing they have a right to.
And even things, such as abortions, that are necessary to avoid a
terrible and irreversible change.
Three times, school staff warned the school administration that a
6-year-old pupil was carrying a gun. The administration did not take
it away from him, and eventually he fired it at a teacher.
Now the superintendent of the school district has been fired.
I've read that someone on the staff searched his bag at some point,
but did not find the gun. Perhaps the student had put it in his pocket
by then. So perhaps the administration did make some effort.
Australia is considering measures to reduce mistreatment and violence
by users of dating apps against people they meet through the apps.
One measure being considered is to require checking users' ID and
"background".
(I am not sure what "background" would include. Criminal record?)
The violence is a serious problem, and it is necessary to do something
to reduce it. However, the proposed requirements would be enough to
convince me to reject the apps.
On the other hand, the fact that they are nonfree programs that
require a nonfree snoop-phone operating system is also enough to
convince me to reject them. Naturally, both are malware
too. The apps collect lots of personal data, which no data base
should have; that alone is enough to convince me to reject them.
They have other problems, too. I don't entirely understand them
because I have never experienced them — I've never used programs like
these. But I've read articles in which people who do use them report
that the apps are generally horrible in social terms. Their culture
encourages people to look for shallow sex; if what you seek is a love
relationship, "Lots of luck!"
It would not surprise me if the violence and outright nastiness are
simply the long tail of what the apps more generally encourage. A few
people try to get away with violence; most people won't do that, but
they do engage in shallowness and unkindness, which is "how everyone
acts here," and besides, "what other option is there?"
I think that the real solution for this problem is a bigger change
than the one that is proposed: to get rid of these apps and encourage
other ways that enable people to meet and get to know each other.
Ukraine has pulled its forces out of Soledar.
There is nothing particularly important about Soledar, nor Bakhmut,
nor the towns behind them. The rational thing for Ukraine to do is to
retreat slowly and steadily, so as to maximize the cost to Wagner
while limiting Ukrainian casualties.
*Concerned teachers and employees warned administrators at a
Virginia elementary school three times that a six-year-old boy had
a gun and was threatening other students in the hours before he shot
and wounded a teacher, "but the administration could not be bothered"*.
Azerbaijan is sending soldiers that pretend to be "environmental
activists" to blockade the road between Nagorno-Karabakh and the main
territory of Armenia.
(The idea that "environmental activists" can take any sort of
initiative in an oil-funded dictatorship is bullshit.) Russian
peacekeepers that under the treaty that ended the last war there are
not authorized to fight a war, so they cannot in practice make those
"activists" leave.
Robert Reich explains the benefits of Ranked Choice Voting.
*The psychedelic ibogaine can treat addiction.* It can also be damaging,
even fatal, when used without proper precautions.
Politicians in many countries adopt a nationalist approach towards
present and projected population decline: they exaggerate how
difficult it will be to cope with a decrease, and presume that the
solution is to persuade young people to have more children.
They don't recognize the future danger of a larger (or even
unchanged) population, and disregard immigration as a way of reducing
future decrease.
It is true that Japanese culture is very unfriendly to immigrants,
but the state could do things to reduce that and help immigrants
surmount the obstacle.
Tory harshness to the weak has inspired anger since before they got
into power in 2010. But they and the press have carefully controlled
whether people were allowed to express anger, and at whom. Repression
of protesters has been harsh all along.
AI is eliminating jobs in a number of areas. It may soon eliminate
jobs faster that the economy can come up with new kinds of work for
people to do.
*Classified documents discovered at Mike Pence's home in Indiana.*
The Republicans that (following the bullshitter) hate Pence will say,
"Pence is just as horrible as Biden." Those that support Pence will
have to find an excuse to argue that it was ok for Pence to neglect
secret documents at home but not ok for Biden to do so.
Tory plans to authorize uniformed thugs to attack protests can create
a dynamic in which protesters know that the thugs are their enemies,
and expect a fight from the beginning. That will means a lot of
fights.
It may also drive those who don't want a fight to give up on protesting
and wait despondently for global heating to kill them.
The Wagner army of ex-convicts has become effective at taking small
areas of territory, at the cost of very high casualties.
Wagner doesn't care about the casualties, because its soldiers came
from prison, released to be cannon fodder. Russians don't care how
many ex-convicts get killed this way.
I wonder, how many convicts does Russia have that Putin could send to
Wagner? How long before he uses them up?
Putin could force any Russians into Wagner, including those who are
not convicts. But if he does that, Russians will care whether they
live or die.
We observe nowadays a tendency to invent verbal circumlocutions, and
pressure people to use these circumlocutions instead of the simpler
everyday words. In particular, every noun that describes a category of
persons is liable to get this treatment. The circumlocution typically
consists of some adjective followed by "person".
The newest target is the word "mummy". The campaign pressures us to
say "mummified person" instead.
I object to that, and not only because there is no good reason for the
inconvenience of the change. A corpse (mummified or not) is not any
type of person; it is not a person. Death ends a person's existence;
a corpse is what a person's body becomes after the person dies. I
will continue to use the noun, "mummy."
Speaking of which, I have a hunch that sooner or later a similar
demand will target the word "corpse".
I think persons deserve certain respect, but that is no reason to
pressure people to perform a ceremony to demonstrate it, every time we
use a noun which refers to a set of persons. Doing so a nuisance.
Adjunct professors at Oxford University will sue the university for
treating them like gig workers.
I hope they win. Nobody who works a substantial amount of time
for a platform should be treated as a gig worker.
On Mao's Cultural Revolution, and how the
years of suffering affected
Chinese people's psyche and thinking,
including that of the father
of Dictator Xi, and the totally contrary thinking of the dictator himself.
If I understand the article right, the women in the Educated Youth
Friendship Group are hardly "fond" of the lives they led during the
Cultural Revolution. On the contrary, it says they are pretending
together to live the "normal" adolescence that the Cultural Revolution
denied them in real life.
How the Republican Party has sunk:
from Honest Abe to Ever-Lie Santos.
The bullshitter lied about many things, but not the basics of his life
story. When he lied, Republicans coped with those lies by insisting
that the lies were true.
That won't work when Santos falsifies the events of his own life. To
support him, Republicans in Congress have to deny blatant facts.
Thus, their continued support for him demonstrates that no lie is too
low for a Republican in Congress.
Protesters called for Bangladesh's prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to
resign.
After years of state violence against journalists and opposition,
they don't believe she will run an honest election.
Ellen Brown looks at various ways to change the US banking and
monetary system that would stabilize it and eliminate the
problems
caused by the current handling of national debt.
Most of then would require legislation, but the "trillion-dollar
platinum coin" may actually be feasible without Congress.
*Gordon Brown warns of
Tories "testing the water" for two-tier healthcare.*
He also warns that
this would destroy the NHS.
I warned of this years ago — that the Tories seemed to intend to
destroy the NHS.
I wish he were wrong, and I were wrong too.
*Reps.
Adam Schiff and Jim Jordan Killed [US intelligence agencies']
Mass Surveillance Reform in 2020.
Will They Do It Again?*
The FISA court admitted that it could not carry out its responsibilities:
that the intelligence agencies it was supposed to regulate had made it
powerless.
*Prominent Cameroon
journalist [Martinez Zogo] found dead
after
abduction.*
It seems he had made an accusation of corruption linked to the corrupt
repressive "president" of Cameroon.
The article reports that Zogo tried to protect himself from kidnaping
by taking refuge in a thug center. That makes me very curious:
how did the thugs respond to that?
Biden's choice for a
new chief of staff is not merely a plutocratist;
he is a plutocrat and apparently a fraudster.
Australia has a system intended to prevent habitat-destroying changes
in land use, but empirically
it has done little good.
Ministers were too quick to decide that plans were "non-significant"
and bypass careful environmental review for them.
The US Constitution mandates separation of church and state
to protect
against movements to impose a specific religion on everyone.
In other words, to protect against today's Christian nationalism.
Israel has put special
restrictions on foreign citizens' entry into
occupied Palestinian territory.
According to Human Rights Watch,
these rules unjustly cut off contact between the Palestinians who live
there and everyone else.
Collecting the evidence that new energy technologies such as
nuclear
fission, nuclear fusion, and carbon capture and storage, are a distraction and a big waste
of money (or worse). We should rather
deploy the mature renewable energy generation technologies as fast as
we can.
The only difficult new technologies needed are to make airplanes and
ships use electricity. (Perhaps with green hydrogen as an
intermediate form of energy.)
Homeopathy is quackery with dilutions of grandeur.
*New GOP Majority Aims to Give Away Public Lands & Further Enable Big
Oil's Price Gouging.*
57% of Americans want a national medical system. 70% of Democrats support it.
Arguing that Biden's retention of a few secret documents
has diminished his chances of victory in 2024, so he
should step down for someone else.
Who could that be, though? Sanders is the only person that occurs to
me, the only one I am confident would struggle persistently for most of
the causes I believe in. But he too is old now.
*Pentagon No Match for Biggest China Threat: Massive Carbon Emissions.*
A second far-right plan to assassinate a German minister has been
caught and stopped.
Their stated goal is to restore the German empire under the Prussian
dynasty, but perhaps omitting the limited democracy it implemented in
its last few decades.
They hate the minister of health for ordering measures to stop the
spread of Covid-19 and protect the people in general. Ironically, I
expect Bismarck would not have hesitated to use quarantine and
mandatory vaccination, and anything else necessary, in a totally
authoritarian way, to protect the strength of the Reich.
Brazil has accused a businessman of ordering the murder of two
environmental activists last year.
Several countries in Latin America are ineffective in preventing or
prosecuting the murder of environmental activists. Under Bolsonaro's
encouragement, Brazil was extremely ineffective.
Capitalizing the adjective "indigenous" is a way of symbolically
placing indigenous people above other people — in effect, designating
them as the higher group. I think it is wrong to put any ethnic group
over the others.
New York State has adopted a right-to-repair law, though Governor
Hochul imposed limits on the products it applies to.
Even for those products, the law is only a step towards giving users
control over the devices they "own". The law won't stop manufacturers
from designing devices so that they control what users can do with
them and restrict what users can change.
GUber has bullied and seduced its way to
eliminate protections for
workers' rights in several African countries, shifting governments
toward neoliberalism and allowing businesses (including foreign businesses)
to exploit as they wish.
Parts of Australia make it a crime to publicly express certain ideas.
I think the world would be a better place if it did not contain
Nazism. Also if it did not contain hatred against religions, or
religions for that matter.
However, censorship can threaten any idea, and can oppress everyone.
Once one idea is censored, censorship tends to spread to ban other
ideas as well.
Since the rich tend to control governments, they are likely to turn
the gun of censorship on opposition to the power of the rich.
Modi's government has banned a BBC documentary about Modi's connections
with the 2002 sectarian pogrom in Gujarat, when Modi was the head of
that state's government.
I read articles about this at the time.
The Hindu-nationalist right-wing in India has made it a strategy for
decades to stir up violence between Hindus and Muslims, just as the
American right-wing has done (with more success since 2001).
Dozens of prisoners in Texas are on hunger strike to protest against
protracted solitary confinement, in some cases lasting for decades.
The policy is that if a prisoner shows certain signs, that the state
interprets as indicating a gang member, they put per in isolation
permanently. Isolation is almost total — for instance, one phone
call per month, and exercise outdoors alone two days a month.
*Shell to spend $450m on carbon offsetting as fears grow that [such carbon]
credits may be worthless.*
In this interview
with Bill Maher, I found some noteworthy points:
*How Restaurant Workers Help Pay for Lobbying to Keep Their Wages
Low.*
The Tories plan to tighten their "hostile environment" policy, which
is meant to make life in the UK unlivable for anyone who doesn't have
official permission to be there.
US citizens:
call on World Leaders at Davos to Tax Extreme Wealth.
US citizens:
call on the Department of Justice to prosecute the corrupter.
US citizens:
call on the Senate to confirm Gigi Sohn as FCC
commissioner.
The Obama-era FCC version of network neutrality is insufficient
because it doesn't stop web sites from tracking users. It only
prohibits some of the unjust ways to use that data.
What we need is to
prohibit web sites from sneakily snooping.
Whatever info they want about you, they should ask for
openly, and you should be able to give whatever answer
you wish.
Nonetheless, restoring the FCC policy that the corrupter eliminated
would be a step forward.
*Turkey’s Next Elections Could Be the Country’s Last
Real Democratic Vote.*
Truck drivers are now subject to extreme digital monitoring,
and the rigid enforcement can give them reasons to drive faster.
In general, monitoring workers closely makes them anxious and uncomfortable.
Some will quit.
Where unions are strong enough, they may be able to pressure employers
to reduce monitoring. But not many workplaces are like that nowadays.
I think we need strict laws to limit monitoring of workers.
*We Need Housing for People to Live In, Not for Corporations to Invest In.*
Joseph Stiglitz says to tax high earners at 70%
to tackle widening inequality,
and put a wealth tax of 2-3% per year on fortunes.
100,000 people protested in Israel against
right-wing plans to
undermine the supreme court's
check on actions of ministers.
*Lula accuses Bolsonaro of genocide
against Yanomami in Amazon.*
*Why the Fed wants to crush workers,* and
why the interest rate
increases benefit creditors
— that is, the super-rich and the banks.
There were
200 rallies on Sunday in favor of abortion rights,
around
the US. Bad technology prevented me from being in one of them.
I saw notice of the event a few days before it, and I wanted to post
to encourage people to participate — and to participate personally,
if I was up to the walking and standing required.
Sad to say, the URL for finding information about the rallies was a
web page that depended almost totally on nonfree JavaScript code.
Without running that code, no useful information was visible in the
page. As a matter of conscience, I will
not accept nonfree software
as normal or legitimate, so I will not suggest to the public to
run a nonfree program. I had no other solution. Thus, I could not
post about these rallies.
I implore groups that organize rallies to make the small effort needed
to post the information in a simple HTML page accessible from the Free
World — not instead of what they now do, but in addition. The
page could contain an itemized list, with a section for each state and
items within a section sorted by city. That would be easy to
generate, and easy for users to download and search. If organizations
do this, they will enable people to find their rallies from within the
Free World.
I used to know a volunteer who would set up to scrape the inaccessible
pages and put the results in a non-JavaScript page. Then I could link
to that scraper page to post directions to find a rally. Alas, I lost
touch with per last year.
If you'd like to volunteer to do this for me, a few times a year,
and you know how to do it, please send me email at gnu.org.
A
French thug attacked a man who was taking video of a protest,
knocking him down to the ground; then another thug clubbed him in the balls.
This damaged one of his testicles and he needed it amputated.
*The worst thing about Davos? The Masters of the
Universe think they
are do-gooders.*
Spoof ads for BMW and Toyota in the UK mocked the companies for their
pollution and their
anti-climate lobbying.
How long, I wonder, before the Tories make it a crime to portray
a global corporation's
products "in a negative light"?
Many South Koreans want to develop nuclear weapons for South Korea for
deterrence against North Korea. But they would not be
guaranteed to
deter Dictator Kim.
A completely bullshit headline claims that Getty Images has sued
the maker of
Stable Diffusion for "stealing photos".
The text of the article reveals that that headline is total confusion.
The case is not about theft at all; it is an allegation of copyright
infringement. Both factually and legally, those two are totally
different.
If someone had stolen photos from Getty,
Getty would not have them any more.
So let's turn to the issue that this situation really concerns: does
the output of a machine learning system infringe the copyright on
items in the training set that contribute to that output?
There are possible cases where it clearly would infringe. If a
substantial part of the output is very similar to one item in the
training set, no stretch is required to conclude that it copies from
that item.
However, people don't use machine learning system intending to get a
part or a slightly modified version of some existing work. The aim is
to mix, seamlessly, little bits of many training items. The items
that play a role are more like artistic influences than like samples.
To find these to be copyright infringement would be disastrous to the
creativity that copyright is nominally intended to promote.
The main purposes of copyright today is to keep some big companies
rolling in dough, and any effect on artists is for politicians merely
an excuse. For us, however, the question of what copyright law should
say is mainly how to
promote the arts without interfering with users' freedom.
I do not use Stable Diffusion, ChatGPT, or anything like them that
exists now, because they don't respect the user's freedom.
ChatGPT is a nonfree program that users can't even run, because users
can't get the program's source code, or even its compiled executable.
All you could possibly do with it is to identify yourself to the
owner's server and send it some input data for your dossier. Then it
sends back the output, over the net.
This is a manner of making a program available for usage that tramples
users' freedom even worse than ordinary proprietary software. We call
it
SaaSS (Service as a Software Substitute) and I reject it, just as
I reject nonfree executable software or source code under a nonfree
license — for my freedom's sake.
Stable Diffusion consists of two parts: the "code", which is free
software, and the "model" which carries a nonfree license
that restricts
use. The free code could be useful for the community as a basis for
other developments, but it's not something that users could directly
use by itself.
A call to investigate the London thugs who on various occasions had to
judge whether rapist David Carrick could remain on the force, and
disregarded complaints against him, thus allowing
him to continue his
series of rapes.
*Police investigating rape claims in England believe
victim-blaming myths,
study finds.*
They tend to assume that false accusations are far more frequent than
they really are.
(satire) *Alito, Thomas Share Laugh After Discovering They Both Leaked
Dobbs Decision.*
French president Macron has sparked a general strike by proposing to raise
the
retirement age for the non-rich.
I can imagine situations of great adversity where a democratic country
would act justly by increasing the age for retirement pensions. But
since that adversity would be fiscal in nature, it is a moral
obligation to demand sacrifices first of the rich. Macron fails to
understand this, because he believes in plutocracy.
His main opponents, even more right-wing, are likewise plutocratist
but their stated ideology is to demonize some disprivileged groups.
Right-wingers generally seek to divide people, so they use scapegoats.
The Tories plan to start criminalizing the presentation of unwelcome
attitudes and opinions, using one special case — video that shows
illegal immigrants and their boats in "a positive light" — to destroy
freedom of expression. They will label such
videos as "abetting" a
crime.
Imagine what other attitudes and opinions they might prohibit
by applying that approach to other areas of life.
The bullshitter mistook E Jean Carroll for his
former wife, Marla Maples.
Perhaps that explains why he thought he could have sex with the former ;-}.
On the complex relationship between unions and
public opinion.
In the long term, unions need public support to block right-wing
governments from legislating to impede organizing and striking.
People will give this support through the occasional inconvenient
strike if they recognize that in the long term it makes a better life
for all the non-rich. Thus, unions must make sure that the labor
movement keeps that aim in mind.
Increase in dust in the air, since 1800, may have cancelled out
some of
global heating.
Up to 8% of it.
However, since the 1980s, the amount of dust has been decreasing.
*Tesla video [in 2016] promoting self-driving was staged,
senior
engineer testifies.*
When companies are compelled to reduce staff, some countries laws'
pressure the companies to do it in a gradual way that doesn't cause a
trauma to workers, rather than using the
mass layoffs typical in the
US.
Peruvian thugs raided San Marcos University and forced students out of
their dorm at gunpoint and with violence. The thugs gave them no
explanation, and
reportedly then began to search the students' rooms.
Some years ago, San Marcos University had a student group, San Marcux,
which taught students how to spread the free software ideas. They
invited me to speak on some occasions. That was years ago. I wonder
what is happening there now.
US citizens:
call on the EPA to stop dragging its feet on rules
to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by power plants.
If you have disabled the page's JavaScript, you may get a blank
response after signing. That does not mean anything is wrong;your
signature has probably been sent in properly. The blank screen has
text that is rendered invisible by CSS; if your browser gives you a
way to disable the CSS in the page (as Icecat does), that should make
the text appear.
A general
discussion of the moral issues of which kinds of protest are
legitimate,
then applied to the case of protesting by blocking highways.
This discussion makes sense, in its narrow framework. However,
treating the Just Stop Oil protests in isolation, ignoring the
deadly threat they confront, leads to wrong conclusions.
Global heating and the resulting climate breakdown are already
causing millions of deaths. This year, 200 million deaths
are predicted. The UK government has pledged to help stop global
heating but is not taking much action. Can you seriously argue that
blocking highways in desperation to pressure the state to carry out
its mission is morally wrong?
Blocking highways seems to be a self-defeating method, but that is a
different kind of issue.
Local
pirates in Nigeria kidnap people from boats and steal
their
engines, cargo and fish.
Sadistic LA thugs
tased Keenan Anderson repeatedly for 42 seconds
while he was already helplessly on the ground.
It is not unusual for
such treatment to kill someone, and it killed him.
After killing him, the thug
department claimed his death was his fault.
The author of the first article appears to make a foolish scientific
error. It is irrelevant to understanding the issue politically or
morally, but it is important to learn to avoid. It seems that the
author misunderstood the difference between power and energy, and
assumed that the wattage of successive taser shots should be added to
get a "combined wattage". That is a mistake; adding them is
appropriate only if they happen simultaneously.
If I could find out the wattage that a taser delivers while operating,
I could tell for certain whether this mistake was made.
Erdoğan is using the issue of bringing
Sweden and Finland into NATO
to attack freedom of expression in those countries.
I disapprove of burning books, as a general matter, but if there are
millions of copies of a book then burning one that you own is no great
loss. Perhaps it should be a crime to intentionally destroy a rare
book — if you don't want it, you must sell it to someone who does
or give it to a museum.
It is outrageous to demand that some religion's "sacred" book receive
a higher legal status that any other book — such as, for instance, my
own book, Free Software, Free Society
. I think the moral ideas in
that book are wise, but you have the right to buy a copy and burn it
if you think the opposite.
The Turkish government argues that burning a Qur'an was a hate crime.
This shows that the concept of "hate crimes" as it is understood in
some European countries is a threat to human rights.
Lula has fired 80 high officials of the Brazilian army,
including its
commander, for aiding the attack on the government or shielding the
attackers.
The commander was appointed by Bolsonaro shortly before the latter's term
ended. It is entirely plausible that Bolsonaro did this to support the
insurrection, and entirely plausible that he prepared and organized
the insurrection.
*Republican legislators introduce new laws to crack down on drag shows.*
The article says that most of these bills go much further than what
you would think that means: they "define a drag performer as someone
performing while using dress, makeup and mannerisms associated with a
gender other than the one assigned to [per] at birth." This means
that any
performance by a trans person would be banned. Even a talk
about any subject could be a "performance".
This is typical of the dishonesty of right-wing extremists, whose
repressive laws are often described as prohibiting something very
specific but create the opportunity to prohibit a lot more. Consider
critical race theory — a field of research for historians, some of
whom promote teaching methods that face criticism in academia.
Republicans have passed laws that purport to prohibit teaching
critical race theory in primary and secondary school, which never
happens, but actually prohibit nearly any teaching about systemic
racism.
Georgia thugs killed protester Manuel Esteban Paez Terán,
who had
participated for more than a year in a nonviolent encampment protest
that aims to block construction of a large thug training facility in a
forest that had been slated to become a park.
The thugs say they killed him after he shot a thug, but you can't
trust what thugs say about such things. They present no evidence that
he shot at all. But they have systematically begun to charge
protesters with "terrorism".
Israel subsidizes making movies. The government dislikes two
documentaries about Israel's occupation policies, so now the
government demands that money back,
explicitly adopting a policy of
ideological bias.
The US government carries censorship of movies about war through a policy
whereby the US military cooperates with making films, but only when it
approves of the message of the film.
*Israel's top court ruled 10-1 on Wednesday that Aryeh Deri, leader
of the Shas party and a key ally of Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu,
should not
be allowed to serve as a cabinet minister because of a February
2022 conviction for tax fraud.*
This could make that authoritarian coalition fall apart. Or perhaps
Netanyahu and Shas could settle on some other person to appoint.
However, if Deri is motivated by personal ambition, giving that
ministry to anyone else would not satisfy him.
The rate
of non-vaccination
among US children is rising, and even though it is still small,
it means more people are in danger of polio and other diseases.
Direct air capture of CO2 could
actually increase
the level of greenhouse gas emissions, if renewable generation
is insufficient and fossil fuels are still used to generate the
electricity to run the capture.
If someday there is excess renewable energy capacity to power capture
machines, then they could actually reduce the CO2 concentration, it
seems to me.
However, the article's main point is valid: this method is worse
than useless for the next few years, and it is probably a PR scheme
meant to let out the pressure to reduce emissions.
*Arizona's new attorney general to use election fraud unit to boost
voting rights.*
Once Republicans in Arizona can't stop Democrats from voting, they may
never win again.
*MI5 refused to investigate "Russian spy"'s links to Tories, says
[Tory] whistleblower.*
*EPA Plan for [PFAs] Chemical Discharges "Lacks the Urgency" Needed,
Watchdog Says.*
*If You Work for a Major Corporation, Your Boss Has Probably Already
Made More in 2023 Than You Will [in the whole year].*
*Ditched by Biden, Railway Workers Continue Battle for Sick Leave and
Safer Conditions.*
*OSHA Fines Amazon "Roughly 0.000013%" of Annual Revenue for Worker Safety Hazards*
for "work processes that were designed for speed but not safety" and
"resulted in serious worker injuries."
*Greta Thunberg Warns Davos Elite Will Throw Humanity "Under the Bus"
for Profits.*
They've done it plenty so far.
*Poverty is a big killer in the UK [and in the US]. Where is the
political will to defeat it?*
Artificial light is rapidly reducing the number of stars that are visible
in many parts of the world.
House Democrats have reintroduced a constitutional amendment to
overturn the Corporations United decision, which ruled that
corporations have the "human right" to donate to political campaigns.
The plaintiff's ostensible name was "Citizens United",
but "Corporations United" describes it better.
Claims that Rep. George Santos has not made, this far.
This reached me via a mailing list.
The increase of the absolute number of union members in the US has not
kept up with the increase in the number of jobs.
DeMentis has arbitrarily prohibited teaching advanced placement
African American Studies in Florida high schools.
I hope there will be a lawsuit against this.
A human error caused a batch of votes in a school board election to be
entered twice in the totals. A recent software "upgrade" broke the
code that was supposed to warn if anyone made such a mistake.
The error was detected later and corrected, but more important than
that one election is what this tells us about all elections that use
those machines: the manufacturer could rig an election by installing a
bent "upgrade".
I see no reason to think the manufacturer tried intentionally to do
anything wrong in this instance. The bug had an effect this time only
because of a human error, and the human had no reason to try such an
error intentionally since it was probably going to be detected.
However, another manufacturer (or some employee) could intentionally
"upgrade" the software wrong, some other time.
The article doesn't say which jobs those machines actually do. How
significant this potential vulnerability is depends on that question.
*Analysis Shows Corporate Prosecutions Hit Record Low in 2022 Under Biden.*
UN Secretary-General Guterres told the Davos gathering that expanding
fossil fuel is insanity and must be stopped.
*This [Tory] government knows it’s on borrowed time — that’s why it’s
tearing up our freedoms.*
Around 40% of global company CEOs say they fear their companies will fail, 10
years from now, because of macroeconomic trends.
Sinema and Manchin proudly boasted of supporting Republicans in the Senate
by defending the filibuster.
*Nearly 40% of people in the United States said they or a family
member delayed medical care last year due to the prohibitively high
cost of treatment under the nation's for-profit healthcare model,*
Many are angry at Prince Henry of Britain for saying something that
raised an issue that goes beyond his family, not only for Britain but
even more for the US. It is the issue of war and dehumanization, and
militarism.
When my father fought in France, did he dehumanize Hitler's soldiers?
I never asked him that, but he knew they dehumanized and hated him,
They did not know his name, but if he had been a civilian they would
have sought to murder him, as they did to so many others.
What would it take to wean the US off of militarism? Nowadays, the
efforts to try are not very impressive.
The opposite of militarism is not pacifism. Occasionally there is
a war that must be fought; defending Ukraine is one example,
and potentially defending Taiwan would be another. But these wars
are exceptions among US military campaigns.
A Canadian company has sued the US demanding that the US construct the
Keystone XL pipeline or pay 15 billion dollars.
The lawsuit is under the original NAFTA treaty, which has an ISDS
clause ("I sue democratic states")
It is peculiar that this lawsuit is proceeding, given that
NAFTA was replaced by a newer treaty which does not have an ISDS clause.
The article notes this peculiarity but does not explain how that is possible.
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government reversed itself and approved
the fellowship for Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch.
The UK is considering making it a crime to keep silent about something
that might lead a potential sex partner (which includes any potential
sweetheart or spouse) to reject you.
To criminalize the failure to inform someone of something — whatever
that something might be — invites injustice. To avoid that
consequence, the requirement must be narrowly limited to a few special
cases, each clearly justified and easy to recognize.
Under this law, anyone who has a characteristic for which people are
stigmatized or simply rejected will have to tell all potential lovers.
Don't try to live it down — ever.
Consider the risk you'd take by passing as white and getting involved
with someone who might have hesitated (and perhaps said no) rather
than agree to an interracial relationship. Whether that hesitation is
due to being racist, or to fear of others' racism (*), or even to fear
of future systemic racism, the effect is the same.
You could try to argue that you did not know for a fact that that
point was important to per, but those who want to make an example of
you will respond, "Lots of people feel that way, so you should have
known to expect it. Guilty!"
* Writing this reminded me of the song, Society's Child.
Please do NOT access it through a streaming dis-service.
Use invidio.us!
Interviews with Peruvians about the political situation there.
I am curious about the background of the current president, Boluarte.
Why was she made vice president? Who chose her for that position,
and on what basis?
Musk is suspected of stock trading based on insider information.
The Jewish National Fund is suing Palestinian organizations in the US,
alleging that their boycott/divestment/sanctions campaign is "terrorism".
The trial court dismissed the suit, finding the accusation
"threadbare". That is an understatement — the accusation is
blackwhiting. Boycotting institutions and companies is a standard
tool of democratic political action. It is not, repeat not,
terrorism.
*Colombia announces halt on fossil fuel exploration for a greener economy.*
*US to designate Russia's Wagner Group as "transnational criminal
organization."*
It may well fit that description, but no entity should be officially
designated as "criminal" without a suitable kind of trial.
Thousands of Peruvians opposed to current President Boluarte and
supporting arrested President Castillo are protesting in Lima.
Biden has been accused of hypocrisy for trying to extradite Julian Assange
while criticizing other countries for imprisoning journalists and editors.
The article's original line, "Joe Biden has been accused of hypocrisy
for demanding the release of journalists detained around the world
while the US president continues seeking the extradition of the
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange," implies that Biden's wrong is to
criticize the other countries. I rewrote the line to indicate that
what's wrong is to try to imprison Assange.
The Biden administration is still sending government lawyers to
defend various bad policies instituted by the wrecker.
Republicans, who control Iowa's legislature, have proposed a bill to
put drastic limits on federally-funded food aid.
Wikipedia and other volunteer contribution platforms are threatened by
the UK's proposed "child protection" law.
An enormous iceberg which cracked apart from the Thwaites glacier 20
years ago has started floating away from the glacier. This is
important because it will enable the glacier to start sliding into the
ocean and melting faster.
Maria Ressa has been acquitted of politically-motivated charges of tax evasion but still faces the politically-motivated prison sentence for libel.
(satire) *More Companies Cutting Costs By Replacing CEOs With Prison Labor.*
A study concluded that over 90% of carbon offsets for sale under the
Verra standard were likely to be bogus. It has been a tempting avenue
for fraud.
I don't trust these offsets. When a business makes statements
about greenhouse gas emissions that are based on offsets, I don't take
them seriously.
Governor DeMentis and the Florida Republicans plan to permanently
prohibit companies from requiring Covid-19 vaccination, or requiring
wearing and prohibit medical boards from disqualifying doctors for
spreading Covid-19 disinformation.
A government monitoring committee finds that Tories have neglected
their long-term commitments on policies to protect wildlife in
Britain.
This seems to be the standard Tory approach to any scandalous problem:
to proclaim themselves scandalized, discuss measures to reduce the
problems, then are slow in carrying out the promises. Months or years later they forget or cancel the plans, still unimplemented.
A few years ago, British deportation of people who were lawfully
brought from the Caribbean as children, but cannot now prove that was
lawful for want of necessary old documents, caused a scandal and the Tories
promised to correct this and compensate them. But now they plan to quit early.
Fiji's army insists on ruling the country, never mind what government
is elected.
British climate defenders painted a government building black in honor
of the government's plans to open a new coal mine.
That building holds the office of the minister who approved a new
coal mine.
Chile has rejected ex-president Piñera's personal plan to start a new
copper mine that would endanger marine wildlife nearby.
Many rapist thugs in Britain have made British women afraid to deal
with cops. It has become clear that there are groups of misogynistic
thugs which protect thugs who commit misogynistic acts.
The article proposes reforms to put an end to that. I wish the author
had not dismissed the campaign to "defund the police" by taking it to
mean, literally, "abolish cops." The intended meaning was to respond
to incidents of psychological breakdown by sending people trained in
how to respond to that.
Billionaires strive to undermine democracy to pass laws to transfer
more wealth to them. But desire for even more wealth is not their
only reason. Some also make a political calculation that if workers
are in penury they will be unable to organize to resist. So they seek
to push workers down to penury.
That ideology appeared by the late 1700s and it is still influential
today among billionaire right-wingers.
*Extreme heat could put 40% of land vertebrates in peril by end of century.*
*Tax the Wealthy At Least 75%, Says Oxfam. Do It Now.*
The UK had plainclothes thugs infiltrate anti-apartheid protesters in
the 1970s,
to snoop on their protest planning and their discussions
with their lawyers
about defending them in trial.
(satire) *Debt-Ridden 4th-Grader Shouldn't Have
Recklessly Invested In
Lunch.*
*Wild caught,
freshwater fish in the United States are far more
contaminated with toxic PFAS
“forever chemicals” than those
commercially caught in oceans,*
This makes sense. The PFAs in a lake is basically stuck there, while those
released into the ocean can diffuse through the whole volume of the ocean.
What is clear is that we must stop filling the water with these toxins.
*Fukushima:
court upholds acquittals of three Tepco executives over disaster.*
That is the right outcome. The Fukushima nuclear plant disaster could
have been averted my designing the nuclear plant differently, and that
gives us in our hindsight grounds to conclude that the actual design
was excessively risky. But that doesn't mean people should be
convicted of a crime for not recognizing this in advance.
Perhaps Tepco, the company, should face civil liability for the
economic damage to surrounding businesses. These executives can't
possibly pay that much, but maybe Tepco can do so over many years.
Ethiopia works hard to forget about
the past practice of slavery,
which was abolished there
only in 1942.
The subject is embarrassing so people are encouraged to forget about it.
*FBI's opposition to releasing Leonard Peltier driven by vendetta,
says ex-agent.*
There is some sign that
climate disasters cause harm to fetuses and
newborns.
There are states and countries that make it a crime to cause harm
to a fetus. Could fossil fuel CEOs be prosecuted under these laws?
I hate to suggest it, because the main use of those laws is
to prosecute women who may have tried to give themselves abortions.
Ohio has imposed new systems of
voter suppression; activists are suing.
Arguing that the best way to replace US gas stoves with more efficient
electric induction stoves, over the long term, is with incentives and
financial help.
This way avoids prohibitions.
*200+
Millionaires to World Leaders at Davos: "Tax the Ultra-Rich
and
Do It Now."*
Everyone:
call on Bayer-Monsanto to stop manufacturing
neonicotinoid pesticides.
Everyone:
call on Whole Foods to eliminate plastic packaging.
US citizens: thank the Attorneys General who are
defending
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Supreme Court.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and ask per to pass
the Billionaire's Minimum Income Tax.
The White House comments lines are
+1-202-456-1111
and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213.
It would ensure that every household worth over $100 million is paying
an effective tax rate of at least 20% on their total income each year.
Right-wing politicians demand deregulation of many industrial
activities, including
construction, to "eliminate red tape." However,
the regulations were adopted to save the people's lives,
and
deregulation often leads to deadly accidents.
Building codes in the UK, and especially in London, are an excellent,
terrible example.
The end result is that deregulation benefits businesses (that do or
invest in the activities that have been deregulated), while the harm
tends to fall on poor people, such as the residents of danger-prone
buildings, the inhabitants of "cancer alley",
and the drivers that work for Uber.
Scientists discuss the delusional effect of carbon offsets.
Some scientists sat it might be safe and beneficial for companies
to buy carbon offsets in addition to
meeting mandatory targets for
reducing their own emissions.
A Republican election denialist, who was defeated in the election in
November,
organized a campaign of drive-by shootings at the homes
of
the region's main Democratic officials.
By luck, nobody in the homes was hit. That Republican probably won't
be allowed another chance.
Not-quite-protester Cao Zhixin:
*When you see this video I have been
taken away by the police for a while, like my other friends.*
The
UK's new online identification requirement will effectively
require all discussion platforms and search engines to verify the age of each user.
The obvious way to do that is a repressive and
tyrannical way: by making each user show government photo ID.
I reject commercial communications platforms, because they already
deny users' freedom in various ways — instance, by demanding to
identify the user and/or running their code in the user's computer.
However, there are commercial search engines that currently do nothing
wrong to the user. Will this law make them all engage in repression?
Does the age verification requirement apply to search engines?
GNU Taler can be used to give people a way to verify their ages to
a web site without giving the site any way to identify them. But this
is not entirely finished yet.
The goals of this bill mostly seem valid to me; indeed, they may not
go far enough. For instance, TikTok's practices seem to reduce
teenagers' attention spans; should those practices be banned? I am
not sure. However, the internet is a threat to democracy if tracks
what people do and where they go.
*The world's leading financial institutions — including major Wall
Street banks such as
Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America —
are still pumping money into fossil fuel
expansion.*
If you have accounts there, you can move your money to a smaller bank
which can't do harm like that. I did.
You can also urge your city to do likewise.
Local governments in the UK have apartments that they can rent out or
sell,
People who bought them now face bills for major renovations that
are far more than they can possibly afford.
The UK's new "protect children by repressing everyone" bill would
require online platforms from showing anyone anything that presents
the practice of
crossing the sea around the UK in a small boat
in a
favorable light.
This is blatant political censorship: opposing Tory politics will be
prohibited.
Robert Reich describes what happened on
previous occasions when
Republicans tried to threaten to make the US default
as extortion
against a Democratic president.
*[Ro] Khanna Warns House
GOP Wants to 'Hijack the Entire US Economy'
to Cut Social Security.*
*Tens of Thousands March in Madrid to
'Stop Privatization' of
Healthcare System.*
(satire) *Andrew Tate
Defense Team Assembled From Dozens Of Lawyers
Trafficked From Eastern Europe.*
An elite London
thug has confessed to 24 rapes, plus other crimes,
along a 20-year career. Required occasional background
investigations found nothing wrong.
The author, who insists that UK thug departments must change their
misogynistic attitudes and culture, is in a position to know.
The thug
told his victims that it was futile to report him
because his
fellow thugs would take his side and disbelieve them. Sad to say, it
seems that that was true. He also threatened to murder at least one
of them.
Each victim who complained subsequently withdraw the complaint under
pressure of his threats.
As far as I can tell, companies like Adidas and Nike are supported by
fans who are trapped. They yearn to show off how much money they have
spent on merchandise of one company, so it can milk them over and
over. How foolish!
*Economic Justice Coalition Launches
'Full Employment for All'
Campaign
on MLK Day.*
Teachers in British state schools will go on strike.
The government's crush-the-poor policy is driving nearly everyone to strike,
who has a union.
Thinking about the
US military dominance in the light of the Athenian
empire.
I would not use the term "American empire" to describe this,
because it is rather the empire of the rich, and the US is only
part of its power.
*New Oxfam Report on Inequality and Extreme Wealth
Proves the Need to
Tax the Rich.*
*Former [Iranian] envoys warn against policies
including supply of drones to
Russia and failure to revive nuclear deal.*
14 of the most modern tanks would do Ukraine some good, but that is
not enough to win. Estimates are that
victory would require on the
order of 100 tanks.
Tanks are far from invulnerable in battle, even though rifle fire
bounces off them. 14 tanks, even if they are superior to the enemy's
tanks, will not last long if they fight day after day. If in a large
battle the Putin forces lose 50 tanks and Ukraine loses 10, we would
say that the battle went Ukraine's way, but at the strategic level it
would be a defeat for Ukraine. It would put an end to Ukraine's
attacking with tanks.
*It beggars belief that the UN thought it a good idea to allow an
authoritarian petro-state to host an already compromised COP28.*
Vaccine manufacturers lobbied Twitter to censor
activists that demanded
global permission to make Covid-19 vaccines.
*Warning of
unprecedented heatwaves as El Niño set to return
in 2023.*
As a result, in the next few years we could experience a sample of a
world with 1.5°C of global heating.
*Hundreds of thousands of young climate activists have said they will
continue
“protesting in the streets in huge numbers” against fossil
fuels.*
*The UK government
plans to give police even more power to lock us up.
But it won’t stop us: this is about humanity’s future.*
The UK government is criminalizing, one by one, all methods of protest
that might effectively draw attention to a cause. But the young
people who know that global heating is likely to kill them before they
get old realize that surrendering to the authoritarian state is not a
sane option.
The @irony{Office of Hypersenstivity} at the
University of Southern
California has ruled the term "field work" taboo.
Reportedly this
decision stems from a concern to protect people, on seeing or hearing
the term "field work", from being reminded of the slaves in the 1800s
that worked in farm fields.
Nowadays some slaves are forced to work in nail salons, so there is a
proposal to make the word "nail" taboo. The proposal is that nails,
when used in construction, be referred to as "hammer targets" to avoid
reminding anyone of nail salons. One complicating factor is that
other slaves are forced to work in construction and may use nails; no
one knows what to do about that.
Enslavement is a grave crime, whether the slaves are forced to work on
farms, in nail salons
, in construction,
or anything else. Our governments should do more to prevent it.
But that's no reason to mess up the English
language.
Over 80,000 Israelis protested against recent attacks against
democracy and human rights by Israel's extremist right-wing
government.
How fast will
hotter ocean water melt the Thwaites Glacier
and raise
sea level?
We still don't know, but hotter ocean water can melt several meters
in a century.
Britons must stop fearing to
slam the Tories for ruining the NHS
because of their anti-state ideology.
The idea of "shrinking the state" is absurd, because we need the state
to do many vital jobs.
In practice, governments that say they will "shrink the state" are
practicing "squeeze-up" economics: squeeze the people at the bottom of
the economy, so that money flows out at the top to the rich.
The danger of
Brazil's insurrectionists is not over
yet.
For instance, while most Republican congresscritters are extremists,
the 20 or so who threatened to wreck the US's credit status if they
don't get their demands, thus doing something morally equivalent to
terrorism, are extremist even by comparison with the rest. I call
them "hyperextremists."
All Republican now in the House of Representatives are extremists,
but a fraction may be a little less rabidly so than the rest.
Rather than exaggerate by calling them "moderate," I use the term
"hypoextremist" for them.
Next rally for Julian Assange will be *Saturday, January 21,
11:30-12:30, at Park St Station.*
A report claims that
banks must prepare now for fossil fuel assets to
crash
in value. That means governments must require banks to do this.
The article seems to call for going further than that — for giving
those investors special privilege by protecting them from losing
money. That would make the rest of us reward the fossil fuel
companies with more money for decades of lies and cheating. An
acceptable solution has to make the cheaters pay.
I don't recognize the groups that are behind this report. It may be
true, or it may be an attempt to spare fossil fuel interests from
losing any of their billions.
John Deere, Inc., is trying to deflect
real right-to-repair by making
small concessions and exaggerating their significance.
I decided not to post about the initial announcement, since it would
predictably be one-sided. I figured we would get a clear picture
soon, and we have.
John Deere made it explicitly clear that the aim is to stop states from
passing the laws that do the whole job right to repair.
As for what American farmers deserve, that goes far beyond right to
repair. They deserve tractors whose software is free, libre — all of
it. Tractors which will not communicate anything with anyone except
as the tractor's driver decides, and will not obey remote commands
unless the tractor's driver allows it.
The right to repair is the first battle, and a big one. Please help
farmers win it — and please explain to them the rest of our fight.
*Call for new taxes on super-rich after
1% pocket two-thirds of all
new wealth.*
More information about
toxins that come from gas stoves.
It seems that generation of oxides of nitrogen occurs only when
there's a flame on the stove, and the other pollutants enter as part
of the gas being used, which leaks at a small rate all the time.
John Perkins compares
American economic hit men with China's economic
hit men.
China presents itself as rescuing poor countries from the former but
it offers basically the same sort of trap for those countries.
Perkins is the author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
.
US citizens:
call on Biden to demand a clean bill to increase the
debt ceiling.
The US will hit the debt ceiling limit this week, but it can cope for some
months before the drastic consequences occur.
US citizens:
call on HHS Secretary Becerra to stop Moderna's COVID
vaccine price gouging now.
US citizens:
call on Biden to put an end to offshore drilling for
oil and gas.
US citizens:
call on the Senate to reject House Republicans’ plan to defund the IRS
and protect rich tax evaders.
US citizens:
call on the Bureau of Land Management to protect
Thompson Divide
(in Colorado) from mining and drilling.
The water supply of the London area was privatized, supposedly so that
the company would invest in improving the water supply (including sewage treatment) there. The
trouble is, it makes more money by not investing and leaving the
quality unacceptable.
This is because homes and offices have no alternative choice besides
that one. Water supply is a natural monopoly, and therefore it should
be closely regulated.
The wrecker's 2017 tax cuts were a
big giveaway to rich corporations.
This was anticipated, but now the figures demonstrate it was true.
*NEWS: GAO Study Finds 34% of Large,
Profitable Corporations Pay Zero in Federal Income Taxes.*
Los Angeles thugs repeatedly tased Keenan Anderson to death while
holding him helpless on the ground.
Anderson had warned passers-by
that the thugs were trying to kill him. It appears he was right.
A right-wing extremist official in Alabama thinks he has found an excuse
to prosecute women for taking abortion drugs.
*Insurers Are Fighting To Protect Their Medicare Fraud.*
Business lobbying blocked bills in Congress intended to regulate PFAs.
Capturing Soledar would be of little practical significance to the
Putin forces.
It would not even guarantee they could take Bakhmut; and capturing Bakhmut
would likewise be of little practical significance.
The concentration of so many Putinite mercenaries there seems to
indicate the lack of capacity to try to do anything strategically
significant — at least for now.
After a series of blows to the Voting Rights Act, what remains, and
what have right-wing judges destroyed?
Staff effectively working for TikTok used TikTok location data to track
reporters to try to find staff who were giving interviews to those reporters.
I don't care whether those staff had asked permission. I don't care
whether TikTok (or its Chinese owners) are sincere in saying they
won't do this again. The problem is that they do collect the data,
and are in a position to use it to track people if they decide to.
The problem is that the system is designed to require users to trust
the good will of the company's staff and management. Such a system
must be designed differently so that users' trust not to track people
is not an issue.
The fact that some Chinese staff could track the locations of US
reporters and their US sources makes the problem additionally grave,
but that is not a fundamental change. Enabling the US staff to track
the locations of people in the US is dangerous too.
*World On Verge of "New Industrial Age" as Clean Energy Jobs Boom: IEA.*
The projections in the article sound very good, but I wonder how they
compare with what is needed to keep global heating to a level of 1.5°C.
*Stop "Caving to Fossil Fuel Industry," Experts Say as 2022 Confirmed
Among Hottest Years on Record.*
The Espionage Act is so absurdly overbroad that even the actions of
people such as Julian Assange and Joe Biden may technically have
violated it.
We need to change that law.
*Brazil police find draft decree intended to overturn election result in
former Bolsonaro minister’s home.*
Bolsonaro had not signed the decree; it is not clear whether he ever
saw it.
The ex-minister was Anderson Torres. Bolsonaro put Torres in charge
of security in Brasilia shortly before his presidential term ended,
and it appears that Torres used that authority to help the
insurrection.
Torres went to Florida in time to be missing in action at the
time of the insurrection. However, he returned to Brazil
as he said he would, and was arrested on arrival.
Four months after the floods in late August, parts of Pakistan remain
flooded. Of the 33 million who were flooded out of their homes, 8
million are still homeless.
The UK may replace ankle-mounted GPS trackers with portable
fingerprint readers that the person is required to carry at all times.
I think the two systems are equally intrusive, more or less, but they
need to be compared with being in an immigration prison. Overall, I
am more frightened by spread of "voluntarity" GPS tracking that is
imposed implicitly, by apps and web sites used via snoop-phones, and
that hardly anyone has the stubbornness to refuse.
I think it should be illegal for those devices to track the user
except under special conditions — and the snoop-phone should never
be allowed to send a GPS location directly except in an emergency
call. Other than that, the user should be able to send the current
location by requesting to display it, then cutting and pasting that
location into an app. This gives the user the opportunity to decide
what location to tell to the app. This flexibility is what shields
users from tracking.
An NGO, the Supreme Court Historical Society, raises money mainly from
from companies that have a stake in coming Supreme Court cases, and
gives their executives and stockholders access for one-on-one
conversations with the justices of the court.
That is an avenue for unjust influence.
A right-wing campaign to restrict abortion rights suggests direction
for Republican extremists to attack next.
In Salafi Arabia, censorship of political dissent operates by
execution.
*Tens of thousands of Israelis marched in central Tel Aviv and in two
other major cities on Saturday night, protesting far rightwing PM
Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to overhaul the legal system and weaken the
Supreme Court — undermining democratic rule just weeks after his
election.*
Some teenagers have started a "Luddite Club" to reject anti-social media
and (at least part of the time) snoop-phones.
They see one side of the injustice. It would be great to clue them in
to the other unjust aspect of snoop-phones.
An unofficial war crimes tribunal heard the case against Dubya,
Cheney, Rumsfeld and their associates, following serious procedure,
and found them guilty of launching a war of aggression against Iraq.
This tribunal has no power to punish those convicted, but it suggests that
an official tribunal would likewise convict them.
There were protests against the dictator of Tunisia, who has eliminated
Parliament from government.
Wendell Potter: *Medicare Advantage is a money-making scam. I should
know. I helped to sell it.*
Potter resigned from promoting "Medicare Advantage" and turned to
exposing it instead.
The Tories have decided to allow thugs to "stop protests before they
start" by arresting protesters preemptively.
New York State is being sued for allowing
cryptocurrency miners to run
a gas-fired electric generator to power the computing.
Missouri's state legislature has imposed a dress code on all members.
Bare shoulders and arms are forbidden: everyone must wear a coat or a
jacket.
However, some details are different for men and women legislators.
Men are required to wear a tie, and are forbidden to wear a dress or
skirt. I would resign from the house rather than wear a tie! Women,
more fortunate, are not required to wear one.
Any dress code treats people badly. They should get rid of it. But
it is amusing to imagine what they might do if a trans person or
nonbinary is elected to the legislature. What to wear???
Maybe the motive for the code is to exclude working-class people from
the legislature.
The
US political system rewards brash liars,
such as Santos — and the
corrupter.
I disagree with the claim that that is what "Americans" deserve.
People tend to get the politicians their behavior deserves, but no
people deserve to be ruled by corruption and lies.
El Salvador's right-wing government doesn't prosecute the many murders
committed by the army during the civil war, decades ago, but it has
jailed environmentalist leaders accused of killing an army informant
during that war.
People fear this represents the government's intention to repeal
the ban on toxic mining that those leaders brought about.
*Labour’s lost if it doesn’t defend public spending.*
It might avoid losing an election but it will have got lost in planning
what to do afterward.
*Garland Appoints Special Counsel Over Classified Biden Documents.*
A Republican official in Wisconsin boasted about the
effectiveness of
Republican voter suppression in Milwaukee.
US inflation is slowing without the high level of unemployment
that
some economists predicted would be required to reduce inflation.
* The
findings revealed that a noisy environment makes it harder for
dolphins to communicate and cooperate
on tasks.*
Human activities, including shipping, sonar and sonic blasts,
nowadays make dolphins' environments much nosier than they used to be.
*"You Couldn't Make It Up":
Head of UAE Oil Company Appointed Chair of UN
Climate Summit.*
Climate defenders already concluded that these conferences had been
captured by planet roasters who had rendered them useless for their
purpose. With this final step, they have advanced from undermining
the conferences to mocking them with unveiled derision.
*Nurses claim victory after three-day strike
at two New York City hospitals.*
A crucial demand in this strike was that the hospitals hire more nurses
so that the nurses will not be overloaded.
The right-wing
Supreme Court majority flatly refuses to reconsider
death sentences,
regardless of what the constitutional issue at stake
may be.
A fair fraction of people
respond to being in jail
by feeling that
life has become unbearable. Is this a psychological disorder, or is
it a kind of normal?
A zinc
mine on the great Sumatran fault could pollute a large area
in the case of an earthquake.
*New Stock Listings Open the Door to
American Investment in the
Israeli Occupation [of Palestine].*
*Washington is shrieking at the
prospect of a defense budget cut.
But
would it really be so bad?*
A clock that runs backwards is right four times a day. Maybe Republicans
are right a few times a year, and this could be one of them.
*The rest of 2023 is going to look a lot like the first
few days of
the Republican majority in the House: an abject disaster.*
San Antonio voters aim to pass an initiative
to prohibit the San Antonio
thug department from taking any action against "abortion crimes".
Wouldn't anyone performing an abortion in San Antonio still be at risk of
arrest by Texas state thugs?
US citizens:
call on Congress to ban JROTC instructors from promoting
the NRA
in our schools.
Everyone:
call on major food distributor Sysco to cut out
single-use plastic packaging.
Biden's secretary of the interior may be a member of an indigenous group,
but
she (clearly with Biden's approval) is yielding to the planet roasters
more than she is resisting
them.
Let's not judge people by their ethnicity.
*Honduran
environmental defenders shot dead
in broad daylight.*
A video shows a Russian conscript
accuse his commander of disobeying
Putin's orders to supply and train conscripts,
and shoving him.
The conscript was convicted of "doing physical harm" to the commander,
which appears to be somewhat of an exaggeration. However, what must
have hurt the commander most was this criticism. It is almost
impossible to believe that the criticism was not true. Is Putin
honest enough with himself to recognize that?
Zoning laws play a big role in
the housing shortage in Los Angeles.
Indeed, this is generally true.
(satire)
*Study Finds Early Humans Selectively Bred Corn To Be Less
Aggressive.*
UK businesses claim that reducing the subsidy they get for gas
would make it difficult for them
to invest in using less gas.
That smells to me like bullshit. Cut subsidy for business, or raise
taxes, and they will claim that they need that money to (1) invest in
decarbonizing and (2) invest in innovation. Or whatever thing they
now want businesses to invest in. But when they get that money,
they are likely to do something else with it.
Instead of subsidizing their fossil fuel bills, and hoping they will
use that to invest in energy efficiency, how about offering businesses
loans specifically to invest in energy efficiency?
Blocked by lawsuits from forgiving student debt,
Biden is trying
another approach: to reduce the amount of payments
for the loans.
To get enough water in the future, California will need to
eliminate
housing from floodplains, and permit rivers to flood them again
by
removing levies.
Lula accuses Brazilian thugs of colluding
with the Bolsonarists who
attacked the centers of government.
For instance, evidence shows that someone opened the door for them
in two of the three buildings.
He has called for the arrest of two of Bolsonaro's officials who were
in charge of security in Brazilia. They are
accused of sabotaging
security so as to facilitate
the insurrection.
One of them went to Florida shortly before the insurrection and is
staying very close to where Bolsonaro is staying. By coincidence?
The UK's "national security"
bill would define "spying" to include
normal journalism.
Specifically, journalism would be a crime if it published anything
that "may materially assist a foreign intelligence service." The article
gives examples.
Everyone:
call on General Mills to eliminate unnecessary, single-use
plastic packaging.
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San Francisco continues harassing homeless people — for instance,
stealing their few possessions — to try to chase them away.
City
employees do this, and vigilantes sometimes follow
their lead.
*Tigray rebels start handing over weapons to Ethiopian army.*
Perhaps this will lead to peace.
Lula has defeated the coup, and may defeat those who wish to
destabilize Brazil, but the long term political
challenge of
right-wing politics remains.
Facebook executives were warned that Bolsonarists were using that
platform
to build support for a coup.
The promotion algorithm magnified their reach. As usual, it helps
whoever advocates the most shocking violence.
Democrats in the House could thwart
McCarthy's vow to use the debt
ceiling to hold the US government to ransom
by signing a discharge
petition.
They would need at least five Republicans to sign it with them.
I think there is another way. Robert Reich recommended that
Democrats
should unite with the slightly-less-extremist Republicans
to elect one of those as speaker.
It has been reported that any member of the House can now demand a new
election for speaker, per the new rules McCarthy imposed at the demand
of the hyperextremists. If Democrats make a deal with the Republican
slightly-less-extremists to support one of those as speaker, perse
would win. They could make a deal beforehand to raise (or eliminate)
the debt ceiling and to leave Social Security and Medicare untouched.
Reich referred to those Republican as "moderates", but I don't think
that term fits them. Just as "moderate" Democrats are actually
plutocratist, not moderate at all, so are "moderate" Republicans.
The Bolsonaro mob vented their hatred of democracy
on Brazil's
equivalents of the White House, the Capitol, and the Supreme Court.
They destroyed even abstract art as if it expressed support for
democracy, and wrote graffiti on the walls calling for military
dictatorship.
People have a right to say they would prefer a military dictatorship,
but taking or planning violent action in the name of establishing one
is an unforgivable crime.
Governments are in favor of debt forgiveness for Sri Lanka,
but
private lenders (hedge funds) are blocking the deal.
Republican senators are blocking most of Biden's appointments to federal
judgeships in the US south.
This is partly because of a rule that the Senate won't vote on a
nominee unless the senators of per home state approve of per. ISTR
that the Republicans abolished that rule when the corrupter became
president,
so they could quickly fill the backlog of vacancies that
they had created by blocking all of Obama's nominations for years.
So why is that rule operating now? Did Democrats restore it?
How the
drying up of the Great Salt Lake endangers human health.
Some say that the already-dry parts of the lakebed are already giving off
toxic dust.
Australia proposes to make major polluting businesses invest to reduce
heir emissions
intensity — the amount of greenhouse gas emissions per
unit of production — to meet annual targets.
However, it will continue the use of "carbon offsets",
which tend to range from delusional optimism
to outright fraud.
Congressional Republicans changed the rules
of the Office of
Congressional Ethics to make it unable to operate.
This is to protect various Republicans such as from any follow-up on
the ethics complaints they would have faced.
Alas for poor Rep. Santos, it will not protect him from possible
extradition to Brazil for the fraud charges he ducked out on a few
years ago.
US citizens:
call on ConocoPhillips to stop its proposed Arctic
drilling
project before it's too late.
US citizens:
call on Biden to keep fighting for the expanded Child Tax
Credit.
Here's the text I used for the letter.
US citizens:
call on Congress to stop the GOP plot to defund the IRS
to protect wealthy and corporate tax cheats.
Haiti has no elected officials left.
It had a senate, but all the
senators' terms of office have ended. The place is too chaotic to hold
an election to replace them.
The chaos is partly due to a series of US interventions, including removing
President Aristide from office
twice,
and imposing two unelected presidents,
Martelly
and Moise.
Watch out, Australia! The system to pay for public transit in
Victoria will be replaced —
the plan is for people to pay using
portable phones,
which would effectively identify them to the system
and track where they go.
The existing payment system, "Myki", permits buying a card with cash;
however, buying another card is expensive enough that people will
hesitate to do that very often. BART in San Francisco has done
something similarly unjust.
All in all, this system is not very good, but you can protect your
privacy with some effort. It is possible to swap cards with a
stranger in a station, if there is a machine that will show how much
money is stored in a card. The one who receives the card with the
greater sum stored can pay cash to compensate the other, so that
neither one loses or gains any money.
Victorians, please campaign now for the new system to be better for
privacy. Demand a way to pay for one ride at a time with cash!
Fabulist Santos is suspected of
lying about the origin of his campaign
funds, which is illegal.
*Why
[Bolsonaro] is responsible for the riots [in Brasilia].*
Supporters of Bolsonaro in Brazil's military police encouraged the
riots, then helped them by failing to act to stop them.
High elected officials did this, too.
*Banks and countries pledge $10bn to rebuild Pakistan
after catastrophic
floods.*
Is the banks' "contribution" a donation, or is it a loan? A big loan could
crush Pakistan decades or even centuries.
There will surely be more such floods, and even bigger. Rebuilding in
any straightforward way will only lead to another destruction. What method
can avert disaster if the rain repeats?
Facebook will protect teenage useds
from some kinds of targeted advertising.
That's a step in a good direction, but everyone deserves privacy.
Everyone on the net deserves to be protected from targeted advertising,
and from being profiled at all.
*Madagascar's unique wildlife faces
imminent wave of extinction [in
the next 20 years],
say scientists.*
*Extreme weather left
474 people dead and cost $165bn in the US last year.*
Sanders condemned Moderna for increasing the price of Covid-19 vaccine
to as much as $130.
It costs $3 to produce a dose.
Corporations are not people; they have no inherent rights, not even
the eight to continue operating. And certainly not the right to charge
for a medicine whatever price maximizes its profits.
*Greenpeace Calls on
US and Mexico to Defuse Largest Carbon Bomb
in
North America.*
Musk promised laid-off Twitter workers
three months of severance pay.
He waited months, then offered them just one month of pay in exchange
for a nondisclosure agreement.
If they all sue. and he loses, it will be what that jerk deserves.
The Tories plan
a new law to attack each kind of nonviolent but
annoying protest that climate defenders come up with.
The
US Consumer Product Safety Commission advocates banning sale of
new gas stoves,
not only to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas
emissions, but because their indoor pollution is a major cause of
asthma for children.
When I tried cooking on old-fashioned electric stoves, I found I
couldn't do it. The lag in response to changes of the heat setting
made it impossible for me to control it. But I've read that new
induction stoves are as easy to use as gas stoves.
The new
president of Peru has been officially charged with homicide
and genocide
after state thugs guarding an airport killed 18 of the
thousands of protesters who tried to take over that airport.
Whether charges of homicide are justified depends on details I don't
know. If they are, whether the charges legally should fall on the
thugs alone, or higher officials as well, depends on more details
I don't know. I don't know which side is right or wrong in Peru.
But charges of genocide can't possibly be justified. The thugs did
not try to wipe out a demographic group, or even to take actions in
that direction. They did not even try to wipe out the protesters
in that one airport.
Weakening the definition of "genocide" will undermine the special
odium that the world has attached to any intentional effort to wipe
out a particular demographic group. That would be a bad thing to do.
Some scientists believe that
repeated Covid-19 infections gradually
wear down a human's immune system
and eventually render her more vulnerable
to various diseases.
It seems there is not yet enough clear evidence to be sure of the
truth about this. In science it is not unusual to get various pieces
of information that don't add up to a clear picture. Eventually,
scientists do the right experiments and get the insight to find the
answer — but that takes time.
In the mean time, it is wise to minimize your own risk — and the
risks to others who come near you — by wearing good masks.
However, people in general seem to be
rushing to forget about Covid-19
although it continues to spread, injure, kill and mutate.
The same
thing happened after the 1918/1919 flu epidemic.
This is exactly the wrong thing for people to do now.
(satire) *Couple Loses Life Savings After Getting Scammed Into Having
Baby At Hospital.*
War game simulation suggests that
an attempted Chinese invasion of
Taiwan would fail,
leaving Taiwan in devastated condition though
unconquered, while wrecking the Chinese military and causing
substantial casualties for the US and Japan.
These casualties would be large by the standard of 21st century US
wars, but small compared with what the US experienced in the Vietnam
War or the Korean War.
Taiwan would rebuild its infrastructure with help. Being devastated
for a decade is not as bad as becoming brainwashed slaves forever.
Another article about
the same war games
reports on projected political effects of the war's damage, but I
think it exaggerates that. If the US had defeated China and still
possessed most of its armed forces, no other enemy would risk a
conventional war.
I wonder how this would affect global heating and climate defense.
The article also suggests how Taiwan could build a more effective
defense for much less money.
If China were not a totalitarian dictatorship, I think it would choose
not to attack Taiwan, rather than suffer such a defeat. Surely some
sort of compromise and peace would be better for everyone. Even Xi
might choose peace, and I hope he does; but he may not care about the
cost or the casualties to China as long as he wins.
(satire) *
Police Ask For Public's Help In Falsifying Report.*
McCarthy's proposed House rules are dangerous,
but at least they are
up for a vote.
He also made secret deals with hyperextremists; we don't know what
those deals are.
Bolsonaro's followers openly promoted their violent plans
(to attack
Brazil's highest government buildings) on antisocial media platforms,
with hardly any hindrance.
The governor of the Brasilia region and its security chief were
Bolsonarists, and did not cooperate in protecting the government from
the planned riot.
They have been fired.
*1,500 Bolsonaro Backers [arrested] After Far-Right Coup Attempt
in Brazil.*
It is good that they did not let all the rioters get away. But it
would have been better to hold everyone who had attacked the
government buildings, at least enough to identify them and search
them.
Bolsonaro's followers remain a threat
to democracy and liberty in
Brazil, and (due to their commitment to deforestation) to the survival
of civilization as well.
The US is an exception among countries in several ways. Here are a few
unfortunate exceptions that we Americans ought to fix.
The ICC is supposed to prosecute people for war crimes when their own
countries fail to prosecute them. The US should sign the ICC treaty;
but them it should never leave prosecution of American war criminals
to the ICC. The US should prosecute them.
*When Big Pharma Spends More on Stock Buybacks Than R&D.*
I'd complete the sentence with, "We ought to pass laws to
reduce the price of medicines."
Many
instances of extreme weather in 2021 and 2022 were made worse by
global heating.
Some would have been outright impossible in the past.
If a former elected
official of the Tory party quits and gives support to Labour,
saying in effect "I haven't changed — the parties have changed," what
does that imply?
You could say that Labour is getting stronger, because it is attracting people
from new areas of political views. But I think Labor is becoming more and
more like a "centrist" party that puts the rich first.
*Netanyahu's Government Takes a Turn Toward Theocracy.*
Theocratist parties joined the government in exchange for an opportunity
to attack the liberal order and human rights in Israel.
US citizens:
call on Congress to protect the Office of Congressional Ethics.
One federal appeals court ruled that the policy of banning bump stocks
stretched the law too far.
I think this applies only to the states in that one circuit: Texas
and some nearby states.
In sensible times, the US would amend that law, but I expect the
anti-gun-control fanatics controlling the House of Representatives will
not allow that.
Random innocent events, seen through the filter of confirmation bias,
enabled US military personnel to convince themselves that NGO aid
worker Zemari Ahmadi, traveling around Kabul on errands, was carrying
explosives for PISSI. So they
fired a Hellfire missile at the car he
had borrowed from the NGO.
In just a few minutes, analysts figured out that the missile had
killed noncombatants, and within hours, that it had killed children
(who were certainly noncombatants). Nonetheless, the US military
continued pretending to be absolutely sure that it had attacked a PISSI
fighter and only fighters had been killed.
The US military did admit, in a week or so, that Ahmadi and the other
people killed were all noncombatants, not enemies at all. That was a
big advance compared with the standard US practice before that, which
was to deny stubbornly that a drone strike killed noncombatants,
disregarding all evidence that it did.
A campaign calls on governments not to require internet infrastructure
companies to censor people's communications.
Please don't call communications and publications "content". That
term disparages all of them as mere filler to keep a container full of
something or other.
I find it disturbing that Facebook is criticized for labeling the
statement "Men are trash" as "hateful". Of course it is hateful — it
blatantly expresses misandry, just as "Women are trash" would express
misogyny. Both statements carry hate, similar kinds of hate, in a
similar way, differing only in which target is hated.
The crucial point is that neither of those statements should be banned
or censored. I might rebuke a person for saying either of them, but
to forcibly limit people to saying only nice things (or to show hate
only towards those we revile) is intolerable.
Despite that minor inconsistency, this campaign stands for freedom.
Someone is shooting at Democratic elected officials in Albuquerque.
After five attacks, I think we can conclude that this is an expression
of the Republican party's encouragement of political violence.
Greg Palast reports on evidence about the Jan 6 insurrection
that was not followed up, or not collected. Why didn't the state
identify every rioter and search their cell phones?
It is especially disturbing (though not surprising) that some capitol
thugs showed their support to the insurrectionists, before the actual
insurrection.
The NHS now directs patients who have money to pay to get a
"private
clinic" appointment sooner at the same place.
The NHS used to provide medical care for nearly everyone in Britain.
Under Tory power, it has become a provider of lousy care for the
people that the state considers unimportant.
*When state services fail, citizens pay extra or sink. This is Sunak’s Britain
now.*
Ralph Nader's advice to progressive congresscritters for how to champion
progressive policies effectively.
Hamline University in Minnesota has fired a teacher
for showing, in a class on the history of Islam, an old Persian painting of Mohammad.
It was made by Muslims as a religious object.
The article reports that in Persia, and in Persian-influenced Turkey
and India, there is an old Muslim tradition of paintings of human
beings including Mohammad.
Catering to the most conservative Muslim views, which are those spread
by Salafi Arabia since 2001, has become the requirement exacted by the
most fanatical devotees of tiptoe culture. The university president
actually asserted that this demand overrides academic freedom.
A teacher must not insult students — to do so goes against the
requisites for doing the job. However, this applies only to how the
teacher relates to them interpersonally. It does not apply to the
substance of the class; no student has the right to censor that.
Calling class material "offensive" or claiming to have been "harmed"
by it does not oblige the school to change it. In a free country,
people do not owe your religion (whichever one that might be) any
particular respect.
The university owes the teacher who was fired an apology, restoration
of duties, pay for the period of work that perse lost, and some
punitive damages. And above all it must recognize that students cannot
eliminate academic freedom by shouting, "Offensive! That harms us!"
A six-year-old student intentionally shot his teacher and critically
wounded her.
*Protesters gather at Iranian prison in
attempt to stop ‘imminent executions’.*
Tories set up policies that tended to unjustly harm people who
lawfully came to Britain without any special papers in the past. but
had no papers to prove it. Tories dragged their feet in ending these policies and compensating victims. Now they plan to
throw the whole matter away.
Bolsonaro probably entered the US
using a visa he held as a head of
state. In the normal course of events, that would be canceled now,
and he would be compelled to leave the US.
The US should make him leave rather than give him a base for planning
to endanger Brazil.
The ideal thing would be to extradite him to Brazil, but I would
expect there is no evidence to justify criminal charges.
Israel has prohibited showing the Palestinian flag in public places.
Palestine asked the UN to adjudicate Israel's occupation of Palestine,
and Israel is "punishing" this by applying many forms of repression
all at once. (I have the feeling that the right-wing extremists in
the new Israeli government were itching for an opportunity to do
this.)
But why should Palestinians deserve punishment for asking the UN for
adjudication of their rights?
*Insect declines mean
reduced yields
of healthy foods like fruit and
vegetables and increased disease in people. This is estimated to cause
half a million early deaths per year.*
*With McCarthy, the [corrupter's] coalition of MAGAs and oligarchs lives on.*
I don't think the oligarchs want the US government to shut down. What will
they do to prevent it?
Amazon warehouse worker Rick Jacobs had a heart attack and died while
at work. To prevent any disruption, management kept the remaining
workers in the dark about it by
erecting a wall of cardboard boxes
around the area where Jacobs's body lay.
"Liberty Mutual" insurance company (an ironic name) has a new CEO. A
campaign presses for him to stop the corporation insuring and
investing in fossil fuel projects.
This is a clear example of a pernicious development in progressive
thinking: advocating an explicitly privileged higher status of
citizenship for indigenous people.
The campaign makes four demands. I support the first three,
but I criticize the fourth demand (which I have relabeled "4-") for
the unfairness of demanding new rights but limiting them to indigenous
people, thus denying those rights to all other people impacted locally
by a large fossil fuel project. That omission is racist in spirit.
Item 4- should be replaced by this one:
Why would a group of progressives think of proposing 4- instead of 4+?
Why advocate rights that are clearly required by justice, then
spontaneously and arbitrarily limit them to a small subset of humanity?
In today's progressive thinking, there is a current which, not
satisfied with the goal of eliminating the racism against indigenous
people and compensating the injustices that have been practiced
against them, seeks to elevate them to a status above ordinary human
beings. According to that line of thought, they are inherently
superior by birth to the rest of humanity — born high-minded and
loyal to preserving nature. Therefore we (the rest) should have faith
in them, consider them born to be our leaders, and grant them the
privileges and power to make decisions for all of us. They would be,
in effect, a new noble class.
I would support demand 4+, which advocates additional rights for
everyone, indigenous people included. I will not support 4-, which
denies those rights arbitrarily to the rest of us.
Great Salt Lake could disappear in 5 years
at the current rate of
shrinkage. Conservationists say Utah needs to adopt policies to
take less water from the lake.
The article says that the region is overdrawing the available water.
At some point it will hit a hard stop and have to cease much of its
economic activity. However, it doesn't explain what harm will
come directly from the emptiness of the lake itself.
Harvard's school of political science invited the former head of Human
Rights Watch to visit as a fellow. Then
the dean cancelled the invitation
because he has criticized Israel for human rights violations.
Those human rights violations already amounted to apartheid, but Israel's
new government, which includes right-wing extremists, is planning to make
things much worse. Honest defenders of human rights will have to criticize
Israel more than ever. Rich supporters of Israel will surely increase
the censorship pressure in US universities.
Don't assume that those supporters are Jews. Some of them are
fanatical Christians who are determined to bring about events that
would
fulfill certain prophecies related to Christian myths of doomsday.
US citizens: call on leaders in
Congress and Transportation Secretary
Buttigieg to fine airlines
that cancel flights for reasons other than
weather, and allow states to participate in enforcement.
As
reporter Dion Rabouin was interviewing people on the street outside
an office of Chase Bank in Phoenix,
a bank employee asked him what
he was doing. Soon a Phoenix thug showed up, handcuffed him with no
apparent excuse, and made him sit in a police car, threatening violence
along the way.
Someone made a video of this harassment, and the thug threatened to
arrest per as well.
It is common in the US for thugs to arrest journalists for recording
how they treat members of the public. It is less common for cops to
come and threaten reporters for journalism that does not involve cops
at all.
The reporter worked for the powerful Wall Street Journal, which has
demanded explanations.
Windfall profits taxes in Europe permit
fossil fuel companies
to deduct the amount they invest in access
to fossil fuels.
That is the usual way of handling taxes on business, but it will lead
for bad results with fossil fuel investments. There is no room in the
carbon budget for more fossil fuel wells or processing capacity, so
investing in those things should be forbidden. If it can't be
forbidden just yet, at least it should not be tax-deductible.
Scientists have solved the crucial problem of genetically engineering wheat.
They plan to produce heat-resistant varieties.
If they go on to make flood-resistant varieties and drought-resistant
varieties of wheat, wheat could be safe against extreme weather. Hmm,
better make that varieties which are flood-resistant and
drought-resistant.
But what about wildfires? Can any wheat plant be fire-resistant?
The article says nothing about whether these new varieties of wheat
will be patented, or restricted by plant variety monopolies. If they
are, their use will have an enormous cost for farmers, and will
further concentrate wealth for the richest few, at the expense of
everyone who eats wheat.
The world must exempt food, all forms of food plants and animals, from
imposed artificial monopolies.
This is advice about
talking with people who are grieving,
from
someone who has listened to many grieving people talk about it.
As I read the article, I thought of the friends and relatives I have
lost. I have a list of the people I've lost via death, and every so
often I go through it and think about each one of them.
I frequently felt grief for the English language while reading the
article, each time I came across plural pronouns and verbs alternating
with singular pronouns and verbs, referring to the same one person.
I have never understand the idea that it was obligatory to try
desperately to avoid reminding someone about a loss. In my
experience, I recall a raw loss frequently, whether anyone reminds me
about it or not. That's what the author says, too.
Recalling the death of a friend years ago is not agony, more of a
distant regret. It reminds me of feeling at ease with that person in
the past. By contrast, recalling an old rejection can be devastating,
since it was probably my fault.
Sabri al-Qurashi was released from Guantanamo prison to Kazakhstan,
where
he is treated as a stateless illegal immigrant,
forbidden to work, and his wife is forbidden to visit him there.
California has been hit by
several extreme rainstorms in sequence,
and more are expected
to follow.
Global heating is predicted to make this happen frequently in certain
places, the US Pacific Coast being one of them.
The
mayor of Xirivella,
a suburb of Valencia near its airport, visits
constituents for dinner to find out what they are thinking.
McCarthy was elected Speaker of the House after a series of
concessions that put him under the power of the hyperextremists.
If
even one of them no longer supports McCarthy as speaker, perse will be
able to demand a new election for speaker, and McCarthy could easily
face the resumption of the conflict.
"Kevin McCarthy has repeatedly put
his personal ambitions ahead of
our democracy."
*Two months after Elon Musk laid off half of Twitter’s workforce,
some
employees affected say they have yet to receive any formal
severance
offer or separation agreement.*
Twitter has stopped paying rent on a San Francisco office building.
Perhaps Musk believes he can get away with stiffing those employees.
Musk seems to be imitating the cheater's behavior patterns. The cheater
is famous for
refusing to pay contractors he hired to work on buildings;
one of sued and won.
Perhaps Musk feels inclined to follow that example of arrogance.
Half the world's glaciers are expected to disappear by 2100
if we have
4C of global heating.
(satire)
How the Speaker of the House is elected.
A woman in England is charged with the
crime of trying to give herself
a late-term abortion.
Even if this is not allowed, it should not be a crime.
Human life begins around the time of birth.
The EU has adopted a
plan to reject products produced via
deforestation,
including agricultural products.
Secretary of Transportation Buttigieg was supposed to use his authority
to make airlines work to prevent massive cancellation of flights.
He ignored warnings and did nothing.
Democratic officials privately implored Buttigieg to do something about this,
but no Democrats wanted the public to know he was doing a bad job.
*Financial World Celebrates Slowing Wage and Employment Growth in New Jobs
Report.*
The EPA is proposing stricter standards for soot pollution,
which
harms people's health. However, its proposal is not as strong as what
the EPA's scientist advisors say is needed.
*Two Years Later, Neither [the corrupter] Nor Worst Actors in Congress
Have Been Held to Account
for Jan 6. Insurrection.*
Over 1% of the US adult population were displaced by "natural"
disasters in 2022.
Of course, we know that these "natural" disasters were at least
partly artificial.
I wonder how this compares with past years' disasters.
Lula's wife says that Brazil's presidential residence was left by
Bolsonaro in very damaged condition.
I wonder when Bolsonaro started this act of spite. Did he start it
before the election he lost? Or only after he had lost?
Some art works appear to have been stolen. The president surely does
not have the authority to dispose of state property, but he probably
did so. Can he be charged with conspiracy to steal them? That could
provide grounds to ask the US to extradite him.
New Tory strike-busting laws will order unions to betray workers,
and destroy
them if they don't.
An old censorship law could be reinterpreted as prohibiting sending
abortion medicine through US mail.
The decision will be up to the
antiabortion right-wing extremists of the Supreme Court.
*Fears US supreme court could radically reshape clean water rules.*
100 famous writers stated their solidarity with jailed British climate
protesters.
Republicans have eliminated the security checks for entering the House
of Representatives' chamber,
where the representatives meet and vote.
They demand to be allowed to bring in guns, and want Democrats to trust
them not to shoot anyone.
Some of them have hinted at murdering Democratic representatives in
Congress, and all of them practice frequent shameless lying. I
wouldn't trust them not to plan to kill me.
Australia has brought home some Australians supporters of PISSI
who
were in prison camps in Syria. Now one of them is facing charges of
going to Syria to support PISSI.
I think it was right to bring them home, and right to prosecute those
who supported PISSI. Other countries should do likewise. Exile
should not be used as a punishment for a crime, and imposing any
punishment for any alleged crime without a trial is even worse.
However, the actual charge is "Travelling to Raqqa." That action is
being used as a proxy for the act of going to support PISSI. The
prosecution of an action which is only a proxy for the real accusation
seems wrong to me.
Hong Kong exiles in Taiwan
think about how their old home has been
changed into something they cannot return to — about the danger
that China could do the same thing to Taiwan next.
*South Carolina Supreme Court Permanently Blocks Abortion Ban [in that state].*
This means that abortions are once again legal there.
Full details on how
Israel's government plans to eliminate independence
of the judiciary
and allow the Knesset to override any and all rights.
A winter heat wave set high temperature records all across Europe,
showing how close to disaster the world is.
*Oxford Study Warns Extreme Heat and Drought to Hit 90% of World Population.*
*World Could Lose Half of Glaciers This Century Even If Warming Is
Kept to 1.5°C.*
The Tennessee Valley Authority wants to build a
new gas-fired power plant. Biden should block it.
The US should reduce the military budget by
cancelling some dangerous spending on new nuclear weapons and avoidable wars.
*FTC’s Proposed Noncompete Ban is a
Victory for American Workers & Fair, Competitive Markets.*
Will any progressive candidate run for president in 2024?
India's opposition is stymied because the Hindu fascist
BJP control or crush all avenues to reach the public.
In desperation, the Congress Party leader is walking thousands of
miles, covering India's territory, to speak with the public.
An Indian friend told me that all Indian political parties buy votes
— and that the surprise demonetization of 100-rupee bills was a trick
to catch the Congress Party with cash it was about to hand out. The
BJP, by contrast, had advance notice of demonetization and therefore
was able to preserve its pile of cash for buying votes.
Texas now makes it harder for minors to get birth control, by making
contraceptive clinics get parents' approval before filling prescriptions.
I wonder whether pharmacies in other states are required to obey Texas
law on this question, for customers in Texas. Or can they thumb their
noses at it? Does anyone know?
A Ukrainian teenager in Mariupol accepted "evacuation" to Russia,
thinking he could leave via Belarus, but they confiscated his passport
and sent him to am institution. He got out with the help of a secret
network of Ukrainian friends and Russian underground helpers.
The bureaucratic nature of Putin's policies to hold Ukrainians captive
always surprise me. Putin's officials don't explicitly call all
Ukrainians prisoners and treat them as such. On the contrary, most
Russian officials respect Ukrainians' nominal right to travel, after
other officials have intervened to make it nearly impossible for them
to satisfy the legal requirements for travel. The minority that can
still meet the requirements, can leave Russia without further
difficulty. The rest are effectively prisoners.
Iran's hierocratic government is as arrogant towards other countries
as it is toward Iranian protesters and Iranian women.
Israel's government plans to weaken the power of the judiciary to
overturn laws.
This would make it possible to impose repressive new laws that the
Supreme Court has rejected.
*Jewish Voice for Peace condemns the Israeli government's latest
violent escalation.*
*China data "under-represents" true impact of Covid outbreak — WHO.*
The MAGA maggots are demanding an advance commitment to shut down
the US government rather than increase the debt ceiling, as a precondition
for voting for anyone for speaker.
They are dead-set on sabotage.
I read, years ago, that the Speaker of the House cannot absolutely
block a bill from being voted on. If a majority of the House wants to
vote for a bill, they can sign a discharge petition to bring it to the
floor.
The XBB variant of Covid-19 is becoming dominant in the US, because it
is more infectious than previous variants. The new bivalent vaccine
does some good against it.
US citizens: call on the House of Representatives not to defund the IRS.
(satire) *Union-Busting Manager Graciously Accepts Pay Cut Because
Boss Knows Best.*
*When will Republican voters figure out how badly they’re getting screwed
by Republican politicians?*
Male Afghan professors are quitting their jobs to protest the ban on
women as students.
Avian flu is devastating seabird populations,
leaving just a few birds alive.
Around the world, people are suing governments for failing to defend
the climate from human activity, and suing fossil fuel companies and
their investors for attacking the climate.
The US now allows ordinary
pharmacies to fill prescriptions for mifepristone, the abortion drug.
Staff of the UK's NHS say that
the fewness of staff and lack of facilities
is overloading them unbearably and driving them to quit.
I say "fewness" rather than shortage because Tory policies preclude
having more staff.
*The House speaker fiasco shows that Republicans are unable to govern.*
Their approach to governing is the terrorist's approach: "Give us all
we demand or we will wreck everything we can reach." Now 20
Republicans, the extremest of the extremists, are using that approach
against against the not-quite-so-extremists.
Does the US Constitution give us any recourse against terrorists that
control the House of Representatives, before the next congressional
election?
Mauritius and the UK are negotiating over control of the Chagos
islands.
The Chagosians, who were kicked out of their home in the
1960s, want to be consulted.
Hackers discovered dozens of flaws in the security (in the usual
narrow sense) of many brands of automobiles.
Security in the usual narrow sense means security against unknown
third parties.
I am more concerned with security in the broader sense — against the
manufacturer as well as against unknown third parties. It is clear that each
of these vulnerabilities can be exploited by the manufacturer too,
and by any government that can threaten the manufacturer enough to
compel the manufacturer's cooperation.
Jordan Trengove, a man with no particular power or fame, was
falsely accused of rape in 2019.
Eager cancellationists joined in hounding
him everywhere, driving him to move to a different town, and almost to
suicide.
They ignored him when he said that accusation was not true — until
it was proved in court that it was totally a lie.
The obstacles to avoiding climate disaster mount up, and Republican
saboteurs have taken more power. But we must not give up!
Giving up ensures defeat.
Indigenous cultures are being swept away by the world's seductive
mass cultures. The young people are not interested
in their ancestors' culture, so they don't learn it.
Hundreds of cultures are being forgotten in this way.
Scientific advice on what countries should do to avoid being harmed by
Covid-19 cases imported from China.
Aquatic plants have a sense of hearing, which they depend on for
simple orientation. Loud noises generated by human activity can
damage their hearing and perhaps kill them.
Loud sounds can also kill zooplankton and fish embryos.
Since any additional fossil fuel reserves are useless (to extract all
the reserves we already know about would be suicidal), and since
mining the sea floor causes other dangers,
Prohibiting seismic surveys in bodies of water seems indicated as a
first step. Other not-quite-so-loud sounds may also require action.
Brazil has resumed prosecuting across-the-board liar George Santos of
a fraud that he more or less admitted committing,
now that the prosecutors know where to find him.
They plan to ask the US to extradite him.
Santos embodies more than any other person the spirit of the
Republican Party.
Spain is pushing to reduce the enormous environmental impact of
discarded cigarette butts, which nowadays are made of plastic.
Robert Reich: *Republicans fight over speaker of the House — but
whoever wins, the party loses.*
Global heating directly increases gun violence, in the US at least.
Shooting deaths are more frequent during heat waves.
Statistics show California thugs practice racial profiling when
deciding whom to search and which drivers to stop. They also pick on
trans people.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I denounce bigotry, and
normally I will not link to articles that promote it. But I make
exceptions for some articles that I consider particularly important.
That article is one of the exceptions.
*More than a third of UK adults
would struggle to find extra £20 [per month].*
Sweden is planning to kill half of its small wolf population.
The population is already so small that that will put
its genetic health in danger.
American society is evolving towards more loneliness and less
connection
of every kind. Today's use of the internet seems to be
accelerating this change.
My personal impression is that the spaces of possible friendship and
possible love have been somehow poisoned, so that what you can find in
them isn't quite friendship or love any more.
*Teaching philosophy in a [minors'] prison
has shown me the meaning of anger.*
It's a side issue, but please don't refer to 15-year-olds as
"children".
They are teenagers — adolescents.
The Tories plan laws to prohibit strikes in the usual sense of the
word, for a wide range of industrial activities considered "essential"
and whose workers are therefore unable to get by.
Forbidding women from working for NGOs has made
humanitarian aid in
Afghanistan impossible — those tens of thousands of workers
were essential for them to operate.
EDRi rips the proposed European client-side-scanning censorship system
to shreds.
That proposed system is also referred to as "chatcontrol".
Tens of thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit pose environmental
dangers: disrupting star-tracking navigation by birds, insects and
seals, and filling the upper atmosphere with sunlight-blocking and
ozone-destroying aluminum oxide.
*Social media triggers children to dislike their own bodies, says study.*
Even at age 12, 75% say they dislike their bodies. Half the teenagers
have become withdrawn.
Extinction Rebellion in the UK has dropped its practice of
"disruptive" protests in the face of long prison sentences for
nonviolent protest.
I can't criticize the leaders of Extinction Rebellion — but this is a
victory for repression, and planet roasters world-wide will take note.
Robert Reich: *It’s hard to believe, but things are getting
better. They will continue to if we keep up the fight.*
Chinese propaganda tries and fails to convince the Chinese that Chinese
aren't dying from Covid.
*Lula's foreign policy? Encouraging a multipolar world.*
In the long term, I think that is a wise policy, provided it is done
cleverly to avoid a pitfall. The pitfall is that of treating various
rival powers alike, while some of them find ways to take advantage of
Brazil's neutrality to gain advantage over other powers.
In the short term, though, I think this should not extend to countries
that are actually fighting wars of conquest.
Labour proposes to prohibit discussion platforms from having
recommendation algorithms that promote "harmful" messages — without
actually censoring these messages.
This is the approach I have advocated; I am glad they are considering this
rather than banning such messages.
Italy's right-wing government has imposed impossible rules
on ships that rescue migrants from small boats at sea.
The point of the rules is to be a monkey wrench in the
ships' engines, so that they can't save very many.
Bainimarama continues to threaten Fiji with a coup, having previously
imposed a constitution which authorizes the military to overthrow any
government.
The EFF warns of ways Apple could "permit competing app stores" but
make them useless for independent distribution of software — or,
perhaps, useless specifically for the Free World.
This is an important issue and the warning is important too. Sad to
say, the article shows how little the EFF values users' freedom.
Here we see the values that EFF's position is based on:
Incredibly, that’s the best outcome of Apple’s “app tax.” In other
cases, companies simply pass on Apple’s commission to Apple’s customers
by raising prices (since everyone who sells via an iOS app must pay the
app tax, they all raise prices). Even that is better than the worst
outcome, where products and services never come to market because they
can’t be profitable after paying the app tax, and the products won’t
sell if the app tax is added onto their sale price.
The usual outcome of anything digital today is that it offers you all
the convenience you might want, but it snoops on, tracks, and
restricts the users.
*Anger as Pakistan
court frees rapist after he agrees deal to marry
his victim.*
That law reflects the idea, shocking to us, that a woman is property
— initially property of her father, then later property of her
husband. Rape of an unmarried woman damages her value as property, so
the rapist is required to compensate the father for the damage;
marrying her imposes that responsibility.
Fireworks may cause harm to migrating birds, especially when there are
fireworks over a wide area on the same night.
There are certain periods of the year in which birds mainly migrate.
It should be easy enough to avoid having more than isolated fireworks
presentations during those periods.
(satire) *Flesh-Eating Bacteria Struggle To Chew Through Leathery Florida Residents.*
(satire) *Police Release Composite Sketch Of What They Would Prefer
Murder Suspect To Look Like.*
Some Ukrainian nationalists want to close the Mikhail Bulgakov museum
in Kyiv, because he wrote about factions fighting over Kyiv during the
Russian revolution.
Putin's efforts to set up Ukrainian and Russian culture as mutually
exclusive and hostile reflects his totalitarian leanings. It would be
a shame and a disaster for Ukraine to take a similar attitude.
When Youtube cut off RT TV's channel,
it deleted years of past
programs which were not simply Kremlin propaganda.
I disagree with some of the views expressed in that article,
but I trust its factual report.
Indigenous political control of the
Northwest Territories of Canada has opened the door to projects
to give protection to large areas of land.
To preserve the world's ecosystems requires doing this sort of work in
every region. Protecting large areas in Canada won't make up for the
failure to protect the very different ecosystems of other regions.
Perhaps this energetic example can inspire people elsewhere.
However, in this article I also see something that looks like
prejudice. I get the impression that the author admires
"indigenous-led conservation efforts" first of all for putting the
more worthy race in charge, and only secondly for conservation itself.
Protection of biodiversity is important regardless of who is in charge
of it, but I don't like the prejudice.
US citizens: call on the Biden administration to drop charges against
Julian Assange.
US citizens: call on President Biden and the DNC not to make South Carolina the first state to vote in primaries. Prioritize
battleground states instead.
US citizens: call on Biden to Normalize Relations with Cuba.
The EPA has issued a new definition of "waters of the United States"
for the sake of the Clean Water Act.
Since this one would be an advance in regulating dangerous and
profitable pollution, polluters have already asked the Supreme Court
to toss out the whole thing. The right-wing majority wants to transform
the United States into a subservient fiefdom full of powerless people
so that the rich can take more and more while poisoning more and more.
Although we can't do anything about this for the next two years, we
must aim to expand or shrink the Supreme Court to get rid of
its right-wing majority, and their gerrymandering,
and their voter suppression.
Many well-known large corporations in the UK give visible holiday
donations as publicity stunts to buy good opinion that their overall
actions do not deserve.
In Bolivia, most people in the Santa Cruz region actually support
right-wing politics,
including the right-wing coups against President Morales.
Their leader
has been arrested and accused of terrorism.
It would not surprise me at all if he aided the coup in a criminal
way, but the charge of terrorism is somewhat shocking, and I wonder
what concrete actions the alleged terrorism consists of.
*Top Republicans remain silent over George Santos campaign lies.*
If you can stomach the bullshitter's Big Lie, you'd hardly feel a
qualm about Santos's series of little lies.
*Exiled chief rabbi says Jews should leave Russia while they can
… Jewish population will be made scapegoat for hardship caused
by war.*
Astrological forecasts were useful for monarchs even though astrology
was not valid as a means of predicting the future. The same is true
today for economic modeling.
Italy's right-wing government has made arbitrary rules to slow down
the operations of the ships that rescue boat people.
Iran selected five protesters at random and convicted all of them of helping to kill one of the "morality" thugs.
When a mouse gnaws on something that isn't good to eat,
does it get gnawseous?
Q: What do pirate kids study in pirate school?
A: Baking — so they can qualify for pie rating.
I know it won't be easy to get the House to pass expansion of the
Child Tax Credit, but it is vital that you and the Democrats be no
less stubborn than Republican terrorist politicians.
1.
Immediately stop insuring new and expanded coal, oil, and gas projects.
2.
Commit to phase out insurance for coal, oil and gas companies in line with 1.5ºC.
3. Divest all assets from coal, oil, and gas companies that are not aligned with a 1.5ºC pathway.
4-. Adopt a policy to ensure the projects and clients you insure respect the right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) of impacted Indigenous Peoples.
4+.
Adopt a policy to ensure the projects and
clients you insure respect the right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent
(FPIC) of the people of impacted areas.
When Apple removes an app store for allegedly failing to meet its
security obligations, it could take a long time to figure out whether
the action was warranted, and during that delay, the suspended app
store’s customers could lose access to the media they’ve purchased,
If you have "purchased media" through an app, why in the world would
you "lose access to it" if that app ceases to function? Is the EFF
assuming that the "media" is covered with digital shackles, so you
can't play said "media" except through a nonfree program that tracks
and restricts you? It looks that way. Even worse, EFF's statement
legitimizes such shackles.
In the case of audiobooks, Apple uses its high fees to clear the field
of competitors for its own product, Apple Books, which sells books that
are permanently locked (through Digital Rights Management) to Apple’s
platform.
The "worst outcome" according to the EFF would be the lack of some
sort of convenience. In the digital world of today, much worse
outcomes are possible, and indeed likely.
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